National Citizen Party (NCP) Joint Convener and head of the party’s shadow budget committee, Atik Mujahid has described the proposed national budget as “highly ambitious and devoid of reality.”
In his initial reaction to the budget, he said while the government has projected a budget deficit of nearly Tk250,000 crore, the actual deficit could potentially reach close to Tk450,000 crore. Atik Mujahid further argued that the proposed revenue collection target of Tk695,000 crore is virtually impossible to achieve within the current economic reality.
He expressed concern that there could be a shortfall in revenue collection exceeding Tk200,000 crore. “The revenue target set by the government is not realistic,” he remarked.
When actual income and expenditure are considered, this could be regarded as the largest deficit budget in the history of Bangladesh, he added.
Earlier, NCP had announced a press conference for the evening to share their reaction to the budget, but the event was subsequently postponed. The party informed that the scheduled briefing was not held due to unavoidable reasons. A new briefing has been organised for Friday, to provide a formal post-budget reaction.
