Unless a decades-long trend is remarkably reversed, the placement of the proposed national budget in Jatiya Sangsad tomorrow will inevitably bring cries from the opposition camp of the document being ‘anti-people’, and counter-claims by the treasury bench that the agenda set out by the finance minister is, in fact, unreservedly ‘pro-people’.

The ensuing debate is usually long-drawn, and has been described as ‘opposition for the sake of opposition’ on the one hand, and ‘unabashed sycophancy’ on the other. But the race to gain political mileage out of the budget hardly ever touches on the interests of the common people.

So New Age asked politicians on both sides of the spectrum, before the 2005-06 budget is actually made public, what would indeed make this year’s document a pro-people one.

‘We should avoid disregarding the people, especially the poor people, by not imposing direct taxes and discontinuing budgetary measures that hurt them,’ ruling BNP lawmaker Abu Hena said. ‘We are currently widening the income disparity by directly taxing the poor in comparison to indirectly taxing the rich people.’

‘It seems to me that successive governments prepare budgets trying to please a small segment of the population , especially the businessmen and those in the bureaucracy,’ Hena, a bureaucrat-turned-politician added.

‘The foreign lending agencies are becoming unenthusiastic to provide quick-funds for development projects as the size of the government has not been reduced. Rather the government is creating supernumerary posts keeping 400 senior government officials idle as officers on special duty,’ he said, adding that the government has to pay the OSDs without utilising them in the workforce. ASHK Sadek, an MP of the main opposition Awami League, said, ‘For a pro-people budget, the allocation should be increased for those sectors that generate employment opportunities in agriculture and small enterprises.’
‘The budget should be formulated keeping in mind that people’s income need to increase so that they can cope with the concurrent price-hike of essentials,’ he said.

‘You will find huge gaps between the plans proposed in budgets and the implementation of those plans. The lion’s share of the budget is spent on governmental affairs while the allocation for development work remains nearly unspent,’ he said.
Awami League presidium member Kazi Zafarullah suggested that the government should take proper initiatives to keep price hike of essentials in check.
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‘The budget would be an anti-people one if a balance between income and expenditure of the government cannot be maintained through budgetary measures,’ Faruk Khan, another Awami League MP, said.
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Faruk, also commerce and industries secretary of the party, recommended increasing subsidy for the agriculture sector and focusing on poverty reduction, education and ICT, and utility services. ‘If the government cannot streamline expenditure, reduce waste, corruption, and implement the annual development programme, the budget will not be pro-people,’ he said.

Stressing on the need for block allocation for local government units, especially union councils, he said, ‘Otherwise the rural people will not benefit from the budget.’ The agriculture affairs secretary of the Awami Leaue, Abdur Razzak, suggested that the government should reduce taxes on the products regularly used by the common people. ‘Allocation should be more in the development sector than in the revenue sector,’ Razzak said. He also suggested stopping allocation for loss-incurring projects or trying to make them self-reliant.’

The general secretary of the Communist Party of Bangladesh, Mujahidul Islam Selim, said one-third of the development budget should be fixed for social expenses including health and education, another third for infrastructure and development work, and the rest for direct investment. ‘A development fund for the local government bodies, not less than one-third of the budget, should be allocated as a statutory form,’ he said.