Restricting access to data will not serve the interests of the majority of people already under pressure because of decade-high inflation, while the dollar shortage threatens the country鈥檚 debt payment capacity.
The Centre for Policy Dialogue distinguished fellow Debapriya Bhattacharya observed it on Tuesday in a lecture titled 鈥楳acro-economic Challenges and Way Forward鈥� in the capital.
The persistent dollar shortage put the government in trouble to clear arrears worth around $5 billion and threatened the country鈥檚 sound record on debt payment, he said.
Criticising the Economic Relations Division for failing to foresee problems in debt repayment, he said that the government had taken a move to defer the debt repayment to Russia by two years.
He criticised Bangladesh Bank for imposing entry restrictions, denying economic reporters access to important data amid the ongoing economic crisis, and the move to restructure the problem-ridden banking sector.
Finding similarity to the BB restriction on internet slowdowns by government agencies, he said such restrictions help only oligarchs and a few importers.
The majority of people are聽not getting the updated data on time, he said, adding that the present government looked very sensitive to disseminating data.
He lamented that the unwanted situations were happening at a time when one of the major aims of the $4.7 billion loan programme with the International Monetary Fund was disseminating data on distressed assets of banks and wilful loan defaulters in transparent ways.
He said that the growth of the country鈥檚 gross domestic product dropped to 3.7 per cent in the second quarter of the current FY24 from 7.08 per cent.
Terming the overall situation of data restriction as a pre-emptive move, he said that it contradicted the government鈥簊 vision of making the country smart and the country鈥檚 graduation from the least developed countries鈥� bloc in 2026.
鈥楽omething suspicious or fishy is going on,鈥� he said, blaming the lack of democracy and the civil and military bureaucracy for the anarchic situation.
He identified the high projection of GDP over the years without credible information about private investment, employment, and budget implementation as one of the reasons for the current low tax-to-GDP ratio.
Tax collection cannot be increased with suspected high GDP growth, he said.
The Economic Reporters鈥� Forum arranged the lecture to commemorate the late editor Moazzem Hossain of the Financial Express.
FE鈥簊 current editor, Shamsul Huq Zahid, attended the event as a special guest.
The distinguished CPD fellow praised Moazzem Hossain for pioneering economic reporting in the country.
He also entertained questions on the much-hyped merger in the banking sector and expectations for fiscal measures with the announcement of the national budget on June 6.
The CPD distinguished fellow asked how the net losses of problem banks would be met before the proposed merger.
He said that emphasis on direct taxes should be given to give relief to the majority of people overburdened by indirect taxes.
He also expected good governance to check corruption, like the purchase of pillows at exorbitant prices under the $12 billion Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant, funded largely by Russia at a high interest rate.
The CPP distinguished fellow urged the government to strengthen food stocks to check price manipulation of essentials by vested groups amid decade-high inflation over the past 21 months.
He demanded the creation of separate databases for safety net beneficiaries to check duplication.
