Dhaka, 19th April 2011. Today thirteen right based civil society organizations leaded by EquityBD protested government plan to take 1 Bln $ loan and fulfillment of its conditionality, they urged government not to take the loan as such conditionality especially money contraction and VAT expansion are anti poor and anti country. The rally and human chain have held in front of national press club, participated by Arpan, Bangladesh Bhumihin Somitee, Bangladesh Ksihani Shova, Coastal Development Partnership, Bangladesh Krishok Federation, EquityBD, Lead Trust, La via Campesina Bangladesh, Media Foundation for Trade and Development, On Line Knowledge Center, Prodip, VOICE and Uddipan. The rally was moderated by Mostafa Kamal Akanda of EquityBD; other speakers of the rally are Ziad Iqbal Khan, Subal Sarkar, Syed Aminul Haque, Prodip Kumar Roy and Rezaul Karim Chowdhury.
Zaid Iqbal Khan of Krishok Federation mentioned that, as government has already withdrawn bank ceiling on loan there will be reduce level of loan flow for long term investment and there by on new employment. And this will create new crisis. Subal Sarkar of Bhumihin Shamiti stated that, in line with IMF conditionality government will have reduce subsidy in fuel and fertilizers ultimately and there by it will create problem for farmers. Sayed Aminul Haque of EquityBD mentioned that, the country still has comfort level of remittance flow and export growth, import cost might has increased but even with WTO provision government can reduce import, thus government has no need of embark on IMF loan. Prodip Kumar Roy of On Knowledge Center stated that always IMF proposes Value Added Tax (VAT) expansions, in fact which always creates burden for poor people, government has plan to 26 % increase of VAT from next budget year and which is anti poor.
Rezaul Karim Chowdhury of EquityBD mentioned that due to the IMF conditionality economic chaos and pauperization has created in the country like Chile, Zaire, Romania, Russia, Indonesia, Brazil, Argentina, Latvia and Greece, he forecasted that may be Bangladesh will face the same situation by next years, and indications are already there. He demanded that the government must disclose all foreign debt agreements including of IMF and must place in the parliament. Mustafa Kamal Akanda of EquityBD has mentioned that IMF always create debt burden of a country, now Bangladesh has per capita foreign loan of $ 152, by the year 2014 which will be around $ 202, he demanded that the country must have a study on that how much the country has the capacity to take burden of new foreign loan of future. He urged government not to embark on IMF loan.
Please Download Related Paper [Bangla_press] [English_press] [position_paper_bangla]
