EquityBD criticises nat'l budget Terming the proposed national budget FY 2016-17 a budget of 'inequality and injustice', Equity and Justice Working Group Bangladesh EquityBD, a forum of rights groups, has urged the government to ensure free and fair growth of democratic institutions.
"Stopping capital flight should be a priority rather than increasing taxes. Except strengthening democratic institutions, there is hardly any alternative to attracting private investment," they said at a press conference at the National Press Club on Tuesday organised by (EquityBD), a network of rights-based civil societies, farmers, labors and NGOs.
Moderated by Rezaul Karim Chowdhury, the Chief Moderator of EquityBD, the press conference was addressed, among others, by Sayed Aminul Haque of EquityBD, Mostafa Kamal Akhanda of COAST and Zayed Iqbal Khan of Bangladesh Krishok Federation. Ahsanul Karim Babor, deputy director of EquityBD, read out a position paper in the press conference.
Sayed Aminul said that India has shown several effective measures to stop capital flight, but our government has hardly taken any measures in this regard. On the other hand, the proposed budget for FY 2016-17 looks to enhance VAT and other taxes, which they termed unjust.
Rezaul Karim Chowdhury mentioned that politicians must shun the confrontational politics and hate speech to promote sense of security to the citizens which is a basic to stop capital flight. He also said that free and fair growth of democratic institutions is also essential to attracting private investment.
In his position paper, Ahsanul Karim mentioned that there is 26 percent increase of interest for banks and other sources in this proposed budget for taking loan compared to last year. The capital flight of 2013 was 12 times higher than the foreign grant and 141 percent more of foreign loans for the year 2015-16, he said.
Bangladeshi people's deposit in different banks of Switzerland increased 43 percent during 2014 compared to previous year, while deposit rate of other countries especially of India has reduced drastically.    ?UNB