‘Black money whitening bar to curbing corruption’
The opportunity to whiten black money is a big barrier to curbing corruption in the country, said Mustafizur Rahman, a distinguished fellow of the Centre for Policy Dialogue yesterday.
He made the comment while speaking as a chief guest at a programme titled "This Budget in Corona Perspective" organised by the Debate for Democracy at the Bangladesh Film Development Corporation at Tejgaon in the capital, says a press release.
"There is a lot of apprehensions over the implementation of the current fiscal year's budget during the coronavirus pandemic," he said.
"Maybe the budget will be revised after 6-7 months like in the previous occasions and attempts would be made to implement it. The implementation of the budget has to be qualitative and standard," he said.
Prolonging the deadline of projects to increase the expenses is not acceptable in any way, he said.
Around Tk 50,000 crore to Tk 60,000 crore is being drained away from the country in illegal ways every year, the economist said.
As a result, the whitening of black money couldn't make any contribution to the employment generation and social protection of the country, Rahman said.
He said the country's various watchdogs had to come out from their traditional means and try different ways to stem money laundering.
Stressing the importance of a digital platform for tax collection, Prof Rahman said the government had to lay more emphasis on direct tax in place of indirect tax.
Bangladesh needs increased organisational capability, good governance, and political will to implement the budget in quality ways.
He said Bangladesh was yet to face any food crisis even if the entire world was in an economic, health and food risk during the pandemic.
"But we have to address economic and health hazards," he added.
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