Government fails to spend development budget

Despite the one-third budget for only four months, the caretaker government has failed to spend the budget on development expenditures.

"The budget remained at a surplus of Rs 13.35 billion in the first two months of the current fiscal year 2012-13," according to central bank figures.

"There was a budget surplus of Rs 10.9 billion in the same period of the previous fiscal year," it said, attributing the budget surplus to a high amount of growth of resource mobilisation as compared to government expenditure.

However, total government spending increased by 21.4 per cent to Rs 27.93 billion, as compared to an increase of 16.3 per cent in the same period last fiscal year. Total expenditure increased mainly on account of the rise in freeze expenditure, the central bank said.

The caretaker government led by UCPN-Maoist Dr Baburam Bhattarai 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 as they failed to forge consensus after the Constituent Assembly (CA)'s 'death' on May 27.

The special budget had allocated another Rs 109.72 billion, which is one-third of total spending recorded in the last fiscal year, to carry out regular administrative work and development activities, according to article 96 (a) of the interim constitution due to the absence of the parliament. The budget had also allocated Rs 3 billion for CA elections.

But the government has neither been preparing for an election nor concentrating on development work, leaving the budget to remain at a surplus.

Similarly, revenue mobilisation has increased by 27.2 per cent to Rs 36.95 billion in the first two months till mid-September, as compared to a rise of 15.8 per cent to Rs 29.04 billion in the same period of the last fiscal.

Mocking the constitution and forgetting his own promise to hold CA elections, Dr Bhattarai brought a 201-point good governance and economic reforms programme — the fourth in a row since he became prime minister — enraging the opposition.

Former finance ministers blasted Dr Bhattarai for his financial indiscipline and inefficiency, and also for failing to crack the whip on increasing price hike and corruption, as promised by him in his earlier three programmes.

Dr Bhattarai has neither been able to create an investment friendly environment nor 'walk the talk', and has instead been trying to be populist with new programmes every couple of months, doling out the tax payer's money to its party cadres without assessing its long-term implications, and prioritising pressing issues of the country.