'Low development expenditure my biggest failure'

KATHMANDU, May 19: Outgoing Finance Minister Dr. Babu Ram Bhattarai has confessed that his inability to spend the huge resources mobilized through an acclaimed revenue drive was the biggest failure of his nine-month tenure in office. [break]



Talking to the press Tuesday at the Ministry of Finance, Dr Bhattarai said, "I feel bad that the government was not able to use the resources for development purposes and to build a solid foundation needed for a new Nepal."



Since the larger part of the capital expenditure is absorbed by other ministries concerned with development activities, their combined inefficiencies in executing planned development projects dragged down the development expenditure levels, he said.



He also blamed the late budget announcement and absence of local bodies for the low development expenditure.



Nevertheless, the biggest achievement of the government on the economic front was in revenue mobilization, which soared by 40 percent during the first 10 months of the current fiscal year compared to what was mobilized last year, he said.



"When the budget set the target of mobilizing revenue worth Rs 141 billion, many labeled it ambitious and mission impossible. But, despite all adversities we have proved that we can make big achievements if policies and programs are implemented sincerely. He also praised the hard work done by the revenue administration for making those achievements.



He reiterated that the government has done many good things that have laid crucial foundations for the new Nepal and that will make the task of the incoming ministers easier.



"One of the biggest achievements of the government has been that it was able to maintain fiscal balance despite the global financial crisis and that it brought about a high degree of transparency and good governance," said Finance Minister Dr Bhattarai, stressing that all the fundamentals of the economy became stronger during the period.



He also expressed satisfaction over the launch of the Youth Self-employment Program, a budgetary program to extend collateral-free loans of up to Rs 200,000 to unemployed youths to enable them to start their own enterprises.



"It was a great program and it has been most powerful in combating rising youth unemployment, one of the biggest challenges of the domestic economy," he said.

Dr Bhattarai refuted statements that the domestic share maket indices have started rising after the Maoists left the government. Due to the small number of listed companies, the Nepal Stock Exchange index doesn´t reflect the status of the overall economy, he said.

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