Commitment to rebuild new Bangladesh not reflected: Jamaat reacts to budget
Like the previous ones, this is a traditional budget, the party said
The proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year 2025-26 (FY26), presented by Finance Adviser Salehuddin Ahmed today (2 June), did not reflect the aspirations of rebuilding Bangladesh anew, the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami has said in an immediate reaction.
"The commitment to reconstruct a new Bangladesh was not reflected as expected in the first budget after the July uprising. Like the previous ones, this is a traditional budget. There is not much difference in the proposed budget from the main budget of the financial year 2024-25. Although the expenditure did not increase in the budget this time, there was no significant decrease in expenditure, and no touch of innovation was observed in it," Jamaat's Acting Secretary General ATM Masum said in a statement issued to the media.
He further said in this budget, the revenue collection target for the National Board of Revenue (NBR) has been set at Tk4.99 lakh crore in order to meet the large expenditure. "It was not possible to achieve even close to this in the last fiscal year. We feel that this is a big challenge."
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The Jamaat leader continued that the revenue collection target in the budget has been set at Tk5.64 lakh crore. "The budget deficit has increased to Tk2.66 lakh crore, a large part of which will come from foreign sources. There is no sign of reducing foreign dependence in the budget."
He further said although the budget has seen initiatives to increase revenue through various indirect tax increases, there is no such initiative to increase direct tax. "Due to the increase in indirect tax, the common people of the country will have to bear the burden. To increase revenue, extensive changes have been made in the VAT and import duty sectors."
He said tax holidays and VAT exemption facilities for local industries have been narrowed. This will increase the production cost of domestic products.
In addition, the prices of ACs, refrigerators, mobile phones and LEDs will increase, which will increase consumer spending. On the other hand, increasing the import duty on yarn will increase the production cost in the RMG sector. As a result, there may be a negative impact on the exports of the ready-made garment industry, the press statement reads.
