Experts want quality utilisation of budget allocation

Experts, economists and business leaders on Sunday demanded that the government should ensure result-oriented and quality expenditure of development budget along with increasing the size of the budget every year for maximising the benefits of taxpayers’ hard-earn money.At a pre-budget discussion, they also suggested for adopting investment-friendly budgetary measures to attract both the domestic and foreign direct investment in the country.The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh and the Daily Prothom Alo jointly organised the discussion in Dhaka.‘Only a boost in the size of budget does not ensure the development and growth in the country if the development expenditure does not produce goods and services in the economy,’ former chairman of the National Board of Revenue Abdul Mazid said.Many development expenditures are not producing any goods and services and people are not getting any benefits from such expenditures because of wastage of money and lack of quality in expenditure, he said.‘The government should ensure proper utilisation of development funds and good governance and policy consistency for attracting private investments including FDI in the country,’ advisor to the former caretaker government Akbar Ali Khan said.He said that country’s existing political culture and lack of good governance were the major problems for attracting FDI.He urged the government for taking necessary policy reforms in taxation instead of following ad hoc policy for generating immediate revenue.He also criticised the government for taking excessive suppliers’ credit from different countries for executing different projects like buying aircraft and warships, nuclear power plant and other projects.‘The government is taking several suppliers’ credit from different countries including India though such credit has become obsolete in the civilized countries,’ he said.

Such credits are much expensive as suppliers demand more than double price of the product than that of regular market price, he pointed out.American Chamber of Commerce in Bangladesh president Aftab Ul Islam said that quality expenditure of taxpayers’ hard-earn money was an important issue for the government.He also demanded that the government should take steps to restore the confidence of investors through providing safety and security of investments of the both local and foreign investors.Without adequate private investment, nothing will work, he said. Bangladesh Security and Exchange Commission former chairman Faruk Ahmed Siddiqui demanded for simplification and rationalisation of corporate income tax structure terming the existing corporate tax rates and structure high and complicated.Bangladesh Economic Association general secretary Jamaluddin Ahmed suggested for increasing allocation for implementing development projects by reducing allocation for revenue expenditure.Prothom Alo associate editor Abdul Kaium demanded withdrawal of customs duty and value-added tax on import of newsprint for newspaper industry.ICAB former president Humayun Kabir, Saiful Islam, Abdus Salam and Abbas Uddin Khan, vice-president Kamrul Abedin and AF Nesar Uddin, Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management director Ahsan Habib, among others, spoke at the meeting presided over by ICAB president Masih Malik Chowdhury.

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