Equality-based welfare budget coming

Measures are envisaged in the next budget for boosting trade-commerce and investment in private sector alongside taming inflation and raising people's incomes, the finance adviser disclosed Wednesday.

The Finance Adviser of the interim government, Dr Salehuddin Ahmed, gave a broad hint that an equality-based people's-welfare budget would be prepared for the next fiscal year in keeping with priority changes following the regime change.

Dr Salehuddin Ahmed presented before the media the outlook of such a maiden budget of Bangladesh he wants to prepare for the financial year 2025-26.

He said taming inflation would be a big priority and, at the same time, programmes would be budgeted to raise people's earnings.

Also, the finance adviser said, the size of the overall budget would not be bigger unnecessarily while the same prudence would be followed in crafting the Annual Development Programme that is integrated with the national budget.

"We'll try to lessen inflation and will take measures to help raise people's earnings," Mr Ahmed said at a pre-budget discussion with the editors and chief executives of print and electronic media outlets at Bangladesh secretariat.

Also, social-safety-net annuities will be increased and coverage will be expanded to some extent in the coming budget.

He also eyes cashless society and faceless tax system, saying that it is very important. "In no countries, taxpayers face the tax officials."

Mr Ahmed said he would also look into the matters raised in the meeting relating to the problems in newspaper and overall media sector.

"We will assess the budget's impact in advance," said the custodian of exchequer under the interim government installed following the August-5th 2024 mass upsurge.

Also, he said, the government is taking necessary preparation for Bangladesh's graduation from the least-developed country (LDC) status, set for November next year.

At the meeting the media representatives raised issues like raising tax-free-income ceiling up to Tk 0.5 million, employment generation, raising allocation in education and health sectors, tax-net expansion, creation of cashless society, raising the social-safety-net allowance and its coverage, lessening newsprint-import duty, and lowering the size of budget.

Finance Division secretary Dr Khairuzzaman Mozumder said the interim government took office amid huge challenges. The main one is a high rate of inflation.

"The rate of inflation was around 11 per cent few months back which now has got lessened to around 9.0 per cent and is expected to go down to 8.0 per cent by June," he told the meet.

Initiating the discussion, editor of The Financial Express Shamsul Huq Zahid sought to know from the finance adviser about the possible measures to be taken in the next budget to overcome resource constraint and tame inflation.

Chief Executive Officer of RTV Ashiqur Rahman said expansion of tax net without increasing tax rate is necessary.

Although the single VAT rate is 15 per cent, still there are different VAT rates, which is causing chaos in the tax structure. He urged raising income-tax threshold to Tk 0.5 million.

Daily Jugantor Editor Abdul Hye Sikder emphasised measures for lowering inflation, increase in the number of beneficiaries of social-safety-net allowances, raising sales of commodities by the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh, and re-introduction of rationing system.

Shawkat Hossain, Head of Online, Daily Prothom Alo, noted that the real income of people did not increase during the last 15 years. And there are no statistics on how many fresh employments are created every year.

Mr Hossain emphasised abridged budget speech next time.

Loton Ekram, Editor, DBC News TV, underscored the formation of wage board for employees in electronic media outlets.

Zakir Hossain, Associate Editor, Daily Samakal, demanded lowering duty on newsprint imports to support newspaper industry.

syful-islam@outlook.com