High inflation over the years has exacerbated people’s suffering. People are not able to cope with the expenses with the income, the life of the people has been disturbed.
In the meantime, the price of daily commodities is increasing due to the increase of value added tax (VAT) or supplementary duty on hundreds of products and services. It has created a condition of ‘sores on the spine’.
The increase in VAT and supplementary tax on clothes, sweets, tissues, LP gas, sauces, biscuits, spectacle frames and glasses, mobile phone call rates, fruits and foreign travel has already come into effect. This has started to affect people’s livelihood. It is also affecting production. This will further increase day-to-day costs, with long-term implications.
Economists, consumer rights leaders and consumers say the new VAT and additional taxes will further fuel high inflation. People’s suffering will increase further.
During the Awami League government, people were looking for a way out of the situation arising from the unbridled increase in commodity prices. After the fall of the Awami League government in the student-public uprising, the people expected that the interim government would strictly control the market, control inflation, and reduce the suffering of people’s livelihood. But instead of reducing, it was increased again.
The imposition of VAT and supplementary tax on more than a hundred new products has directly increased the prices of products and created an excuse to increase the prices of other products and services in the market. This will make people’s lives difficult. This is a short-sighted and irresponsible act of the government, said Professor Anu Muhammad, member secretary of the National Committee for the Protection of Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports.
He said that life was already difficult due to high commodity prices. The prices of goods were high before. Now it will increase even more. The prices of those products whose prices were increased before will also increase again. The prices of goods increase, not decrease, only when an excuse is made. The prices of goods for which there is no justification for increasing their prices also increase.
Anu Muhammad further said that during the previous government, social inequality had become glaring. High inflation has taken away the entire income of most of the people in the country, whose income is low. On the other hand, those with high incomes have not been able to collect revenue at that rate from them. As a result, inequality has become glaring.
This government is a government of public expectations. The government will not take decisions that create expectations among people – discrimination, suffering. But stating that the government is making a mistake, Professor Anu Muhammad said that they are going in the same way. This government does not seem to be making any difference in economic outlook and activities. And the IMF makes this kind of wholesale decision (increasing government revenue by increasing revenue on essential goods). It had to accept conditions to get an IMF loan. It is doing this while accepting these conditions or while covering up its own incompetence.
This economist further said that instead of taxing the wealthy who were supposed to be taxed; It was the responsibility of returning the looted money, but instead of doing so, it is burdening the people at wholesale rates; it is playing the same role as the previous government.
Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB) Vice President SM Nazer Hossain believes that the process of increasing the prices of hundreds of products will increase the suffering of the people. He told BanglaNews that the prices of products will increase, resulting in further inflation. This will have a negative impact on the livelihood of the people. This is not the right initiative of the government at this time.
However, the government spokesperson says that there will be no impact on product prices. This is the kind of thing that the people of the previous government used to say. This is the kind of thing that people in the previous government used to say. The way people in the previous government used to talk, people in the current government are also talking the same way. The previous minister used to talk in the style that he taught them, said this CAB organizer.
He also said that due to the increase in the price, people’s sufferings have increased in the normal life of the people, the sufferings will increase. Therefore, the government needs to reconsider its thinking about this.
