This is June, the last month of the fiscal year in Bangladesh. In Bangladesh the fiscal year is from 1st July to 30th June. Normally, the National Budget is presented every June and it comes into effect from 1st July. The budget of the FY 2023-24 has also been presented in the National Parliament in June. Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal presented this budget of Tk 7 lakh 61 thousand 785crore. That is, Bangladesh government will spend more than TK 7.5 lakh crore in the next fiscal year. Out of that, Tk 5 lakh crore of the budget will be spent in the operational cost sector and Tk 2 lakh 77 thousand 582 crore are allocated for the development programme. To meet this huge expenditure, the government has estimated to collect Tk 5 lakh crore from the people through tax or revenue. The remaining Tk 2 lakh 61 thousand 785 crore is deficit budget. That is, there is a budget deficit of more than half of the amount of money that the government has estimated to collect from people. The finance minister has thought to fulfill this deficit through bank loans and foreign loans.

For more than one decade, the same ruling government has been presenting the budget. The size of the budget has been increasing every year. In reality, the government spends much more than it collects from the people through taxes. Therefore, the debt of the government is constantly increasing.

In the financial year 2023-24, the government will spend the largest amount of operational cost in paying interest i.e. Tk 94 thousand 376 crore will be spent on interest only. This interest has to be paid to local banks and various foreign companies and financial institutions, from which the government borrows huge sums of money every year. Nowadays many countries are going bankrupt due to failure in paying the interest and installments of such loans. Even in the current fiscal year (2023-24), the government has expressed its desire to collect Tk 1 lakh 2 thousand 490 crore as foreign loans.

 It is a matter of great regret for a Muslim country that the government is spending most of money collected through the direct or indirect taxes from Muslim citizens on interest payments, which is strictly forbidden in Islam. The Holy Quran clearly declares, interest only leads to destruction. If we look at the world economy today, we can see the reality of this declaration. Why is the whole world so much afraid about the economy despite making so much progress in science and technology? Why do superpowers like America reach the brink of bankruptcy? Why do we often face economic depressions? It is time for the Muslims and Muslim rulers to realize. They will never succeed through the interest based economy. Rather, it will destroy them. Most of the people in this country are poor. However, as Muslims, they hate interest from their heart, and avoid it carefully in their daily life. But a large amount of the VAT and income tax money collected from them is spent on interest payments. What can be more regrettable than this?

There are many other things about the budget we have not discussed in this article. Many articles on the budget were published in previous issues of the monthly alkawsar. But who will listen to our cries? May Allah bless the Muslim rulers with good understanding so that they may give up following the destructive way of others.