Caretaker Premier Dr Bhattarai comes under fire

The caretaker government led by Dr Baburam Bhattarai has come under fire from the former finance ministers for its financial indiscipline and inefficiency.

They lambasted the government for failing to crack whip on increasing price hike and corruption that have made people's life more miserable but adding more financial liability to the government that would destroy the remaining Public Enterprises and damage the financial structure of the country.

According to former finance minister Dr Ram Sharan Mahat of Nepali Congress (NC), the government has also failed to create investment friendly environment that has pulled the industrial output's contribution to the economy down.

The government has failed to walk the talk and is trying to be populist with new programmes every couple of months, he said, adding that the UCPN-Maoist party led government is doling out the tax payers money to its party cadres without assessing its long term implications, and prioritising the pressing issues of the country.

Similarly, another former finance minister of CPN-UML Surendra Pandey said that the government inefficiency has propelled the capital flight. The government has also failed to spend the 'one-third' development expenditure according to the special budget, he said, adding that the caretaker government cannot bring the full-fledged budget without political consensus.

"There is no check and balance mechanism that can monitor the government's financial discipline. In the last fiscal year only, the government has transferred Rs 38.67 billion," he added.

The caretaker finance minister finance minister Barshaman Pun — due to lack of parliament — had brought a special budget of Rs 161.24 billion through ordinance in July as an interim public expenditure arrangement, largely focusing on election but not economic expansion for the four months till mid-November. But the consensus that eluded political parties since the Constituent Assembly's 'death' on May 27, has made it difficult for the government bring the full-fledged budget.

"The government has to create environment to form a national consensus government to bring the full-fledged budget," according to Pandey, who also suggested the bureaucracy to be more vigilant and careful as the next government will not own any of the populist programmes that the incumbent government has brought.

Former finance minister Dr Prakash Chandra Lohani of Rastriya Janashakti Party, agreed Pandey. "The consensus government is key to bring the full-fledged budget," he said.

The government has been misusing the taxpayers money by dolling it out to the UCPN-Maoist party cadres in the name of self employment, he blamed.

Dr Bhattarai seems obsessed with only populist paperwork rather than service delivery to the people as he has brought another populist programmes today, which is a continuation of his earlier programmes — on good governance and economic reforms — which had failed miserably to deliver to the people