Parliament passes budget for 2018-19 financial year

Parliament on Thursday passed a Tk 4.64 trillion national budget for the 2018-19 fiscal year

Finance minister AMA Muhith moved the Appropriations Bill, 2018 seeking endorsement for budgetary money of Tk 571833,82,92,000 which was passed by voice vote.

Finance minister Muhith who authored his and the current Awami League government's last budget, used its theme as 'Bangladesh on a Pathway to Prosperity' setting a growth target of 7.8 per cent.

Following the proposal mooted in parliament by the finance ministry for parliamentary approval of appropriation of fund for meeting necessary development and non-development expenditures of the government, the ministers concerned placed justifications for the expenditures by their respective ministries, through 59 demands for grant.

Parliament earlier rejected by voice vote a total of only 448 cut-motions that stood in the name of opposition and independent members on 59 demands for grants for different ministries.

Nine members of parliament (MPs) from Jatiya Party and independent submitted their cut-motions on the budget.

They were allowed to participate in the discussion on higher secondary and higher education division, health ministry, local government division, disaster management ministry and railways ministry.

Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury later applied guillotine to quicken the process of passing the demands for grants for different ministries without giving the lunch break.

Opposition and independent MPs were present in Jatiya Sangsad when the Appropriation Bill was passed in parliament and they did not raise any voice against passing of the bill.

Finance minister AMA Muhith on 7 June unveiled a Tk 4.64 trillion ambitious budget for the 2018-19 fiscal.

The house on Wednesday passed the Finance Bill-2018, with some changes in VAT and tariff rates, aiming to boost the ICT sector and promote local industries.

The VAT on internet service lowered to 5 per cent from the proposed 15 per cent while 5 per cent additional VAT from assembling mobile phone sets was exempted.

The prices of 10-stick low category cigarettes increased from Tk 32 to Tk 35 while that of high-category 10-stick cigarettes to Tk 105 from Tk 102.

The tariff of per gram Jarda was fixed at Tk 1.20 while that for Gul Tk 0.60. The supplementary duty from petroleum jelly was waived considering its wide range of use during winter by rural and marginal people.

Ten per cent supplementary duty on filament bulbs was scrapped as energy-saving bulbs are still costly for the poor and marginal people. Seven per cent additional VAT on locally produced motorcycles was also exempted.

Finance minister AMA Muhith, who placed his 10th consecutive budget for the AL-led government, well projected the economic developments achieved over the past one decade with the present AL-led alliance in power.

The budget for the next fiscal showed that government's revenue earnings would largely depend on NBR-generated (National Board of Revenue) tax (Tk 2.96 trillion) followed by other sources like non-tax revenues (Tk 333.52 billion) and non-NBR tax (Tk 97.27 billion). Still, there will be an income-expenditure mismatch of Tk 1.25 trillion.

As per the finance minister's budget speech, an amount of Tk.540.67 billion (2.1 per cent of GDP) will be financed from external sources while an amount of Tk.712.26 billion (2.8 per cent of GDP) will be financed from domestic sources.

Of the domestic sources, Tk 420.29 billion (1.7per cent of GDP) will be borrowed from the banking system whileTk.291.97 billion (1.2 per cent of GDP) from National Savings Schemes and other non-bank sources.

Muhith gave a relief to certain company tax by reducing it down to 37.5 per cent from existing 40 per cent but belying public expectation he preferred keeping the tax-exemption ceiling intact at Tk 250,000.

In his sector-wise budget allocation plan, Muhith kept aside the biggest chunk of 14.6 per cent for education and technology, followed by 12 per cent for transport and communication, 11.1 per cent for interest payment, 7.1 per cent for subsidies and incentives, 7.0 per cent for local government and rural development, 6.3 per cent for miscellaneous expenditure, 5.6 per cent each for three sectors -- defence, public order and security and pension, 5.4 per cent for energy and power, 5.1 per cent for social security and welfare, 5 per cent for health, 3.7 per cent for agriculture and 3.1 per cent for public administration.

In the Tk 1796.69 billion development budget, the finance minister attached most importance to transport and communication by proposing to allocate 26.6 per cent of development budget followed by 16.3 per cent for education and technology, 15.7 per cent for local government and rural development and 13.8 per cent for energy and power.

He kept aside a sizeable amount for expediting the 10 growth-generating large projects, which are: Padma Multipurpose Bridge Project, Padma Rail Bridge Project, Ruppur Nuclear Power Project, Rampal Coal Based Power Project, Chattogram-Dohajari to Ramu-Cox’s Bazar and Ramu-Gundum Railway Construction Project, Dhaka Mass Rapid Transit Development Project, Construction of Payra Sea port (First Phase) Project, Sonadia Deep Sea port, Matarbari Ultra Super Critical Coal Fired Power Project and construction of Maheshkhali Floating LNG Terminal Project.

He re-imposed 25 per cent customs duty and 3 per cent regulatory duty on rice import to protect local farmers as the country got a bumper paddy production in the Boro season.