Parliament fails to ratify Bills related to budget
KATHMANDU:
When the annual budget for the current fiscal year was introduced on July 13 — four days ahead of the end of the last fiscal — many praised the government for introducing the fiscal policy on time.
They said timely introduction of the budget would give ample time to various ministries to make use of the funds and ultimately increase development spending, which is crucial for a country like Nepal, which has set a 2022 deadline to graduate to grouping of developing nations.
But introduction of a full budget on time is a job half done. To properly implement budgetary programmes, four Bills — Appropriation Bill, Financial Bill, Bill to Raise Public Debt, and Bill on Loan and Guarantee — need to be ratified first by the Parliament, which, unfortunately, has not happened till date.
“I have told the House many times that this delay is pushing the country to the verge of a crisis and asked lawmakers to act fast. But nothing has happened till date,” Speaker Subas Chandra Nembang told The Himalayan Times.
The government presented a budget, or annual expenditure plan, of Rs 618.10 billion for fiscal 2014-15. Of this, Rs 398.95 billion was earmarked for recurrent expenditure, like salary payment of civil servants, extension of grants to local bodies and debt
servicing. Another Rs 116.75 billion was allocated for capital expenditure, like building various physical infrastructure; and Rs 102.39 billion was appropriated for financing provisions, like investment in state-owned enterprises and principal repayment.
In order to make maximum use of the appropriated funds, the government first needs to get the Parliament’s nod. But since this process takes several weeks, the government usually seeks permission to spend a third of the proposed annual budget so that it can pay staff members and execute development works till the time the four Bills are enacted.
In this regard, a Vote on Account Bill was presented at the Parliament on July 16, which was endorsed by the House as well as President Dr Ram Baran Yadav the same day. Since then, the government has been covering its expenses using this stopgap measure.
So, how long will the government be able to meet its expenses using a third of the proposed annual budget?
“We have sufficient funds to cover recurrent expenses of another
one-and-a-half months,” a senior official of the Ministry of Finance said. This basically means the government has enough money to cover one-and-a-half month’s salary expenses of its staff members.
But since the month-long festival season has started and House
proceedings have remained suspended since August 29, the timeframe of one-and-a-half months may not be enough to ratify crucial Bills essential for proper implementation of budgetary programmes.
“So, it would be better if the lawmakers could act fast as it would prevent chances of the shutdown of the government,” the MoF source said.
This year, the government started discussions on the Appropriation Bill on August 7. Although the plan was to wrap up everything by September 11, discussions on half of the issues are yet to be made.
“So far, lawmakers have held discussions on programmes related to local development, peace, information and communications, education, physical infrastructure, forests and law ministries,” said Murari Mahat, undersecretary at Legislature-Parliament Secretariat.
This means more than half of the ministries are yet to be covered. On top, clarification from ministers of the respective ministries, whose programmes have been approved, is yet to be sought, which will take ‘around a week’.
“The process appears to be lengthy, but lawmakers can complete these tasks within a few days if they have the will,” a source at the Legislature-Parliament Secretariat said.
“Once these jobs are done, it wouldn’t take much time to ratify the Appropriation Bill. Ratification of three other Bills — Financial Bill, Bill to Raise Public Debt and Bill on Loan and Guarantee — would then take no more than a few days.”
Source: THT
