Muhith slammed for poor performance

Senior Awami League leaders came down hard on the finance minister for slow progress of projects at a pre-budget discussion on Thursday.

The talks at the ministry between finance minister AMA Muhith and representatives of parliamentary standing committees, as part of a series of pre-budget discussion, predictably emphasised on the grave power and energy crisis.

Veteran AL leader Tofail Ahmed said that a lot of announcements had come in the last budget but 'nothing has improved'.

"There has been no progress in the IPP (Independent Power Plant) sector in the last 15 months."

Tofail, who chairs the parliamentary committee for industries, said it takes at least three years for a power plant to be commissioned under the current tender process.

"We should go for Expression of Interest, which would take a maximum one year and a half."

Terming the recent road shows by the government as 'expensive and useless', Tofail said that he too had run a government for five years between '96 and '01 meaning Awami League's previous tenure when he was minister for commerce and industries.

"We never knew this term road show."

He emphasised on gas exploration saying that otherwise the power crisis would not be resolved and urged that this issue should be given the highest priority.

Tofail strongly advocated higher duty on finished imported goods and lower duty on raw materials to protect the domestic industries.

Suranjit Sengupta, the head of the parliamentary standing committee for law, justice and parliamentary affairs echoed Tofail on the issue of budget implementation.

"There were a lot of new features in the last budget like, PPP, district budget, ADP and revenue budget integration, but none of them took off."

He also said that the 15-month old government has still not finalised the policies for education, land use and industry.

Energy should be declared as the thrust sector, according to Sengupta, a former presidium member of the Awami League.

He asked the finance minister on how the government intended to increase power generation by 4000MW within three years given that it had managed to notch up just about 4500MW in the last 40.

"Will it be done with the help of Aladdin's lamp?"

Sengupta, however, said he believed it was possible but not how things were progressing.

"Spell it out clearly in your next budget speech how the government intends to do it," he advised Muhith.

On agriculture, Sengupta suggested subsidies and support to farmers not only for inputs but also to protect their harvest.

"The farmers fall in grave danger whenever there is a bumper harvest."

Hasanul Haq Inu, who chairs the parliamentary standing committee for post and telecoms, suggested lowering corporate taxes of mobile phone operators since they were already among the highest tax payers.

Inu asked the finance minister to the withdraw the SIM tax of Tk 800.

The JSD leader, an ally of the AL-led government, also asked for budgetary allocations and support to aid further growth of the call centre industry.