Budget to plunder money ahead of polls: BNP

The budget for next fiscal has been designed to plunder public money ahead of the next general election, BNP said today in its reaction.

"It is an anti-people budget. There is nothing in the budget but bluff and arrangement for the ruling party men to plunder public money ahead of the national election," BNP spokesperson Rizvi Ahmed made the allegation in press conference at the party's Nayapaltan central office in Dhaka.

Finance Minister AMA Muhith yesterday personated a Tk 4,64,573 crore national budget for fiscal year 2018-19, setting the GDP growth target at 7.8 percent.

Rejecting the budget, Rizvi said setting up the target of achieving 7.8 GDP growth in the proposed budget is unrealistic and blatant falsehood to mislead people.

Citing statistic that there are around 4.50 crore unemployed youth in Bangladesh, Rizvi came down heavily on the finance minister for not proposing any framework in the budget to create job opportunity for the vast number of unemployed youth.

Terming the budget as tax, credit and grants dependent, the BNP leader said the countrymen have become frustrated as the proposed budget is not pro-people.

Rizvi said the inflation rate will go up if balance between the import expenditure and the export income is not ensured.

He also alleged that Muhith has widen the scope for the private bank owners to loot people's money.