Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Parties support government, budget on November 19

The twenty five parties -- representing the Constituent Assembly (CA) -- today supported the proposal of three major parties to amend the Interim Constitution to allow the caretaker government bring budget.
In the meeting of 27 parties called by Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal at his residence in Baluwatar this morning, two fringe parties -- Communist Party of Nepal (Unified) and Dalit Janajati Rastriya Party -- however opposed the idea of amending the Interim Constitution. They, instead, suggested the government to bring budget under the existing constitutional provision.
"The meeting approved the proposal of amending the Interim Constitution for allowing the caretaker government bring budget without policy and programme," informed UCPN-Maoist leader Dev Prasad Gurung.
Leaders of the United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), Nepali Congress, and Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist Leninist) yesterday agreed to back the proposed budget, which the government plans to present to parliament on November 19. They had agreed to make eighth amendment in the Interim Constitution and add a clause under Article 96.
PM’s advisor Raghujee Panta informed that the government has planned to table the budget on November 19. "It will be passed on November 20,” he added.
Earlier, the opposition UCPN-Maoists has been opposing to let the care-taker government table the full-fledged budget that has been delayed for five months.
The budget that was supposed to be approved by mid-July could not be presented due to political stalemate as the Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal's 'surprise resignation' on June 30 forcing the finance minister Surendra Pandey to bring a Special Budget of Rs 110.21 billion for the regular expenses under the special provision in the Interim Constitution.
After repeated attempts of parliament failed to chose a new Prime Minister, the care-taker government came under pressure to bring the full-fledged budget.
Nepal and his cabinet are running a caretaker administration, attending to little more than the most urgent functions of government.
The successive governments after the CA election has failed to present the budget on time, though last year the annual budget was presented in time, it took the Parliament four months to approve the budget.
According to the finance ministry sources, the government is under pressure to present full-fledged budget also due to decreasing growth of revenue tha has been witnessing around 10 per cent growth.
Last fiscal year, the government has been able to mobilise revenue worth over Rs 181 billion but in absence of the budget this fiscal year, there is a huge revenue leakage that is going to bleed the government coffer.
The delay in budget will also encourage huge corruption by the end of the fiscal year, as the budget could not be spent on the project head alloted for it.
Similarly, the government has not been able to spend on development activities making the private sector also wait and watch. Though the government spending is very less that stands at around 30 per cent, it encourages the private sector to invest.

Budget around Rs 336 billion
KATHMANDU: The government is preparing to present Rs 336 billion budget for the fiscal year 2010-2011. The government had presented a Rs Rs 46.34 billion deficit budget of Rs 285.93 billion last fiscal year. It had targetted to collect Rs 176.73 billion revenue, though revised upward to Rs 190 billion later but collected only Rs 181 billion.

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