Lack of homework hits development spending

Lack of proper homework before the budget has hampered the development budget spending.
"Even after the budgetary allocation, there has been serious lack of fund management and spending capacity that slowed down the government spending on development works," said finance minister Barsha Man Pun during a review meeting of budget with the secretaries of the different ministries here today.
He also asked the senior bureaucrats to be proactive in expediting development expenditures.
"The higher level of policy makers need not always wait for the direction of the ministers," he said, adding that the Finance Ministry is open on resolving the problems, if they have any, as the capital spending has not seen any encouraging trend.
The second four-month review meeting of the budget chaired by finance secretary also discussed on priority one (P1) and priority two projects' (P2) implementation.
Though, the budget for the current fiscal year has capped the development expenditure — for month wise spending — to check the misuse by spending the remaining budget in the last month of the fiscal year, the ministries have been able to spend only 22.07 per cent capital expenditure — on cash flow basis — of the total budget by the March end, said the spokesperson of the Finance Ministry Rajan Khanal.
"It, however, does not include the spending from the donors," he said, adding that the data is from the Financial Controller General's Office, which records only the cash that is spent.
However, the government has been able to spend 46.91 per cent of the recurrent expenditure.According to the budget, the ministries have to spend 60 per cent of the budget by mid-April and in the remaining three months; they can spend 40 per cent but in the last month not more than the 20 per cent.
"The Finance Ministry is, however, expecting some Rs 65 billion budget — of the total Rs 72.21 billion — of the capital expenditure to be spent," he said, adding that the increase in development works can not only generate employment but also brings vibration in the economy.
This fiscal year the budget has been announced on time, but the low development spending has made the government rethink on spending capacity of the ministries, the finance minister told the secretaries in the meeting.