Bangladesh, Nov. 24 -- It's nothing new that the revenue collections in the first two months of the current fiscal year fell well short of targets. Every year the taxman is laden with targets that are never achieved and this combined with inability to spend invariably leads to an adjustment in implementation of the Annual Development Programme. That will come towards the end of the financial year and no one is held accountable. Indeed had the government been a business enterprise, heads would have rolled.
As it stands the National Board of Revenue has been tasked with a whopping 45% increase in collection over that of last year and the Finance Minister didn't mince words when he said barring instructions from the Prime Minister there would...