Finance Ministry fails to submit foreign aid details

An officer from the Office of Auditor General blamed the Finance Ministry for disobeying the Constitution.
According to the Constitution, the Finance Minister has to submit the detailed information of foreign aid inflow and expenses to the Office of the Auditor General and also to the Parliament but neither the Finance Minister not the ministry is giving any details of the aid flow and expenses, said Mohadutta Timilsina of the Office of Auditor General, during an interaction on Aid Transparency organised by Freedom Forum, in the capital today.
If only the ministry follows the Constitution, there could be more transparency of foreign aid that will help make it effective, he added. "The real allocation is never known to the Auditor General, which is against the Constitution."
In the fiscal year 2009-10, a finance minister presented a report of a technical assistance in the House, he said, without revealing the name of technical assistance and the minister. "The report failed to mention some 87.5 per cent spending of the total Rs 17.19 billion technical assistance that had 6.3 per cent spending on consultants, 3.57 per cent on goods and services, and 2.7 per cent on training and seminars," he said, giving an example of transparency of foreign aid, "The 87.5 per cent expenses was under the others heading."
"Once transparency is insured, the foreign aid could be more effective, economist Dr Chiranjivi Nepal said, adding that the country has been receiving foreign aid since last six decades, but there has been no visible impact of the aid.
The remittance has contributed more to the poverty reduction instead of foreign aid, Nepal said. "The foreign aid has neither contributed to economic development nor in the employment generation."
"The foreign aid that is not in the priority of the country has made Nepal more dependent and weakened the government," he said, "If the donors are serious in Nepal's development, they should strengthen the system, become transparent, and harmonise among themselves. "We also need Foreign aid management system for more effective results."
Freedom Forum is conducting a research on aid transparency, said chairman of the Forum Taranath Dahal. "The result of the research will help make the donors more transparent," he said, adding that transparency will lead to the effectiveness of the foreign aid that is key for the country's development activities, as it shares a major chunk of the budget.

AMP in pipeline
KATHMANDU: The Finance Ministry is working on Aid Management Platform (AMP) to make the foreign aid transparent, said facilitator for aid management and coordination under the Foreign Aid Coordination Division of Finance Ministry Julien Chevillard. "The project under the UNDP will help increase transparency, though it will not have off-budget aid," he said, adding that transparency will lead to the accountability too. The AMP — that will collect data in a detailed manner — will be useful for the donors and government agencies in the beginning but could go public by the end of the current fiscal year, he added.