Finance Minister AMA Muhith has backtracked from his earlier position against offering the Tk 150 million 'block allocation' to each of the members of parliament (MPs) for developing infrastructure in their constituencies, monthly payment order (MPO) for educational institutions and more road construction.
He was exchanging views Thursday on the 2014-15 budget with the parliamentary standing committee on the public accounts, the public undertaking, the Finance Ministry and the Planning Ministry at the NEC conference room in the city.
The Finance Minister had earlier rejected lawmakers' call to continue the 'block allocation', MPO system for educational institutions and bankrolling road constructions in the national budget for the next financial year (FY) 2014-15.
Following the demand of the lawmakers at the meeting, Mr Muhith said the 'block allocations' will be continued in the next budget and the MPO is under consideration in a new format and fund allocation for building regional and rural roads will be continued.
In the previous tenure of the Awami League-led government, Tk 150 million fund to each of the MPs was allocated in the national budget every year for development works in their constituencies, like construction of small roads, and culverts.
Besides, the last governments had granted MPO to different schools, madrasas and colleges across the country and also allocated huge money for constructing roads, bridges and culverts across the country.
Almost all the MPs who attended the pre-budget meeting put pressure on the Finance Minister to allow MPO, Tk 150 million block allocations and construction of rural roads.
The lawmakers including chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on the Planning Ministry Abul Kalam Azad, chairman of the standing committee on the Finance Ministry Dr Abdur Razzaque, Dr Rustam Ali Farazi, Maidul Islam, Shawkat Ali, and Panchanan Biswas demanded continuation of the MPO system for the educational institutions.
Mr Muhith replied: "The present MPO system is not good. But grant for the educational institutions is needed. I have asked the Education Ministry to find out new ways for offering grants which will be used for overall development of the institutions."
"I think there is no need for allocating money to construct the national highways except for maintenance works. But allocations for building the roads at regional and rural areas should be continued," Mr Muhith said replying to the MPs.
The Finance Minister hinted at imposing taxes on industries and other establishments polluting environment and offering tax benefits to eco-friendly ones in the next national budget.
"We are considering suggestions of different people for taking special tax measures for eco-friendly and environment-polluting industries and establishments," said Mr Muhith at the pre-budget meeting in Dhaka.
The Finance Minister in his speech said the main objective of the next budget will be 'human resources development'.
"Manpower development is very essential. Especially skilled manpower for the overseas job is imperative as remittance is a major backbone of the economy."
He said: "The size of the next budget will be nearly Tk 2.50 trillion. I always give ambitious budgets. But still public investment in Bangladesh is one of the lowest among the South Asian countries."
Mr Muhith said he had a plan to raise the government expenditure to 4.0 to 5.0 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the next five years instead of the present only 3.0 plus per cent of GDP.
Dr Rustam Ali Farazi suggested Mr Muhith to build the Padma Bridge soon to recover the image of the Awami League-led government that was damaged due to failure of its construction during its last tenure.
The participating lawmakers suggested the Finance Minister to raise the number of tax payers as income and living standard of the people, who are now out of the tax-net, in the country have risen.
They also advised the minister to allocate more funds for constructing rural roads, expand electrification works in villages, check corruption and misappropriation of public funds in the development project works, and budgetary measures for checking food adulteration.
