Zina Tasreen

Mahdi Amin, adviser to BNP acting chairperson Tarique Rahman, speaks to The Daily Star

Bangladesh Bank has opened a can of worms with its revision of the balance of payment data. There is no better way to put it.

Suggest steps taken in the monetary policy

Surely, the manner of Yunus’s sentencing does not add to the broader investor confidence in Bangladesh, and the data points already are not promising.

If there is one indicator that epitomises the government’s mismanagement of the economy in recent times, it is inflation -- which raced to an 11-year high of 9.94 percent in May.

Self-contradictory is what best describes Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal’s fifth budget, and the last of the Awami League-led government’s current term.

In 2019, when AHM Mustafa Kamal took charge as the finance minister, the Bangladesh economy was taxing for take-off for its long-haul flight to the developed country club.

This year was always supposed to be a celebration of Bangladesh’s economic progress with the opening of Padma bridge and Dhaka metro rail and 100 percent electrification.

Ever since Sri Lanka and Pakistan’s economic turmoil, Bangladesh’s foreign exchange reserves has become a part of public discourse. So much so that despite having an official figure from the central bank every week, people are speculating.

Inflation raced to a nine-year high of 7.56 percent in June, in a development that lays bare the extent of the cost of living crisis gripping the low-income and middle-class people in Bangladesh thanks to a war taking place some 5,800 kilometres away in Ukraine.

When reassurance was needed, he exuded panic.

What is the purpose of the national budget? In essence, it is to allocate scarce resources.

Wishful thinking -- is what best describes the maiden tax amnesty campaign the government is planning to lure money back home next fiscal year.

When thinking outside the box was needed, the government opted for the tried-and-tested method.

Wishy-washy -- is what best describes the government’s stance on scaling up its narrow revenue base, which is posing to become the Achilles’ heel to Bangladesh’s growth aspirations.

Strange times are these in which we live when record subsidy allocation may still come short of what is needed.

The government finally raised its guard against the dwindling dollar reserves, putting its employees’ foreign tours on hold and deferring projects that require much imports.

There are bright sparks in all corners of the economy, according to the provisional GDP figures for fiscal 2021-22, which do not show a hint of a pandemic hangover when others are still plodding along.

When Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina defiantly announced in 2012 that the Padma bridge would be built after the World Bank pulled out of the project, her gumption was not irrational.

Can a parliamentary standing committee recommend a project directly to the prime minister without any due diligence? The law explicitly does not permit it.