Capital expenditure stands at Rs 9 billion only by December end

Despite timely budget for the current fiscal year 2013-14, the government has not been able to expedite capital expenditure.

As of January 1, the government has been able to spend only Rs 9 billion on development works – that is capital expenditure – that could have propelled economic growth apart from creating employment.

The budget for the current fiscal year 2013-14 has allocated Rs 85.10 under capital expenditure to achieve 5.5 per cent economic growth target.

By the half of the fiscal year, the government has been able to spend only around 10 per cent of the capital expenditure means the remaining half of the fiscal could not consume the total budget allocated for development works.

The slow performance of the capital expenditure will hit the economic growth target of 5.5 per cent, though timely monsoon might give little hope to the economic growth.

The Rs 517.14-billion full-fledged budget for the current fiscal year, has allocated Rs 353.42 billion for recurrent expenditures – for the regular administrative costs, salary and perks – and Rs 78.72 billion for financial management.

The government has spent Rs 111 billion under the recurrent expenditures, and Rs 13 billion under financial management making the total spending to Rs 133 billion by January 1.

The recurrent expenditure has been spent almost one third as usual but it will not help fuel economic growth as only capital spending can help fuel growth.