Birgunj sub-metropolis breaches finance rules

BIRGUNJ, FEB 01 -

Breaching the Local Body Financial Administration Rules, Birgunj Sub-metropolitan City spent 69 percent of its internal income on administrative expenses last fiscal year.

A sub-metropolitan city having internal income of more than Rs 10 million shall not make administrative expenditure of more than 25 percent of the total earnings, according to the rules.

Last fiscal year, Birgunj earned Rs 87.2 million, while its administrative expenditure stood at Rs 60 million.

Civil servants get a month’s salary as Dashain bonus, but Birgunj Sub-metropolis employees have been receiving the same amount of bonus for Tihar too for the last one and half decades.

The Tihar bonus scheme was started in 2000 by then chief Bimal Prasad Srivastav.

Last year, Sub-metropolis chief Bishnu Koirala made an effort to stop such a practice, but the employees organised a sit-in, forcing Koirala make an additional bonus payment.

In December 31, 2013, daily work was halted again when the office took an initiative to revise the salary payment structure.

After finding out that a seventh-grade official had been receiving salaries equal what a ninth-grade official gets, the office had stopped the provision, but the employees’ union padlocked the office for two consecutive days against the administration’s move.

The union withdrew its protests after the administration rolled back its decision.

In September, the Ministry of Local Development had directed all municipalities and sub-metropolitan cites to get approved administration costs and employees’ salary structure from the city council within the government-set limit.

A board meeting of the sub-metropolitan city on November 11 concluded the salary of a seventh-grade officer, or section officer, at the sub-metropolitan was equal to what an under-secretary gets, and it was against the law.

Subsequently, the board revised the salaries and perks of the employees.

“A reduction of Rs 2,030 from our salary will reduce around Rs 500,000 from our retirement fund,” said an official dissatisfied with the revision.

SOurce: The Kathmandu Post