Stakeholders all smiles at budget, stress implementation

KATHMANDU, JUL 16 -

Former finance ministers, economists and other stakeholders have heaped praise on the government for presenting a full budget for the fiscal year 2013-14. They have also lauded the budget ’s priorities but have expressed scepticism over their implementation. Commentators said the biggest hurdle to implementing the budget would be generating political support.

UCPN (Maoist) leader and former finance minister Barsha Man Pun said the timely announcement of the budget would send a good message to donor agencies and other stakeholders. “Besides, it is appreciable that the budget has earmarked adequate funds for national level projects like hydropower,” he said.

“The next government that will be formed after the election to the Constituent Asse-mbly can own this budget .” The government has allocated Rs 30 billion for the energy sector with the allotment for transmission lines alone amounting to Rs 13 billion.

Earlier, the UCPN (Maoist) had expressed suspicions that the budget would “tilt” towards the Nepali Congress (NC) as the finance minister had been appointed from its quota. NC leader and former finance minister Ram Saran Mahat praised the budget terming it “full-fledged, reasonable and apolitical”. “The budget has tried to make huge investments in national level projects,” he said.

However, Mahat pointed out that the budget , while being accommodative, had not addressed issues related to the slow economic growth rate, growing deindustrialization and incentives for bank mergers. “Besides raising the salary of government employees, the government should have introduced effective programmes to increase their efficiency too,” he added.

Meanwhile, CPN (UML) leader and former finance minister Surendra Pandey wasn’t very enthusiastic about the budget saying that the priorities had been misplaced in some areas. “It talked about involving the private sector in infrastructure projects, but our private sector is not capable of doing that,” he said.

“Some of the project announcements are not based on the ground realities such as the plan to construct 400 suspension bridges and a railway line linking Dhalkebar-Simara by mid-December. There is no possibility that a rail line will be built in that section considering the preparations so far,” he added. Economist Bishwombhar Pyakurel said generating political consensus would be a big challenge for effective implementation of the budget . He added that the raise given to government employees could fuel inflation at a time when goods are becoming more expensive due to a stronger US dollar. “The government could face a serious challenge in controlling rising market prices.”

The budget has hiked the salary by 18 percent and the monthly allowance by Rs 1,000 for government employees. Meanwhile, Surendra Bir Malakar, former president of the Nepal Chamber of Commerce, praised the budget for according priority to the private sector. “The positive side of the budget is that it has tried to encompass various sectors of the economy,” said Malakar. According to him, the budget could help develop big projects as it has allocated adequate amounts of capital expenditure.

Source: The Kathmandu Post