During the talks held at Chairman Dahal´s residence at Lazimpat, former finance ministers and governors, Chairman Prachanda said the UCPN (Maoist) as the largest political party has taken special initiative to forge consensus and urged the former finance ministers not to do politics on budget as it was urgent for the prosperity of the country.[break]
UCPN-Maoist Chairman Dahal blamed the opposition parties of politiczing on budget and urged not to obstruct bringing budget so as to use it for the partisan interests.
According to Minister for Finance, Barshaman Pun, Dahal urged the former finance ministers to take initiative and support the government to bring the budget in time though political consensus on other issues could not be forged immediately.
Finance Minister Pun said, "Today´s meeting was important. We are hopeful that the former finance ministers agreed that the budget should be brought as per the need of the nation."
They agreed that consensus on budget should be made though the political parties have their own stances on budget. However, they put their reservations in the meeting, said Finance Minister Pun.
The government has made preparations to present the budget to President Dr. Ram Baran Yadav on Monday.
In the meeting, former finance ministers and former governors suggested the UCPN-Maoist to bring the budget only after forging political consensus.
After the meeting, former governor of the Nepal Rastra Bank, Tilak Rawal, said that they suggested that the budget be brought on political consensus and today´s meeting was positive.
Rawal said today´s meeting organised by the UCPN-Maoist to forge consensus on budget was positive and they expressed their views that it would have been better if such meeting was held before.
Similarly, Nepali Congress leader and former finance minister, Dr. Ramsharan Mahat, who participated in the meeting, said that they suggested UCPN-Maoist Chairman Dahal to bring the budget by forging consensus.
Mahat said that he expressed the view from the side of NC that budget was necessary for the nation and economic crisis should not been created in the country, but consensus should be forged among political parties for the same.
He further said that Dahal was also in favour of bringing budget based on consensus.
Likewise, former finance minister Surendra Pandey said that they urged the UCPN-Maoist to forward process of budget only after holding meeting with political parties on it.
He said, "We do not want to stop the budget and that is not our intention. We only want that budget should come on consensus and for which there should be special efforts by the government and UCPN-Maoist."
Dahal is also scheduled to meet top leaders of opposition parties including NC and UML.
Finance Minister Pun said discussion was started with top leaders as the discussion with former finance ministers was positive. Present in the meeting were PM Dr. Bhattarai, DPM Narayan Kaji Shrestha and NPC Vice Chairman Dipendra Bahadur Chhetri.
The time line of the previous one third budget is to end soon and a new budget should come from mid-November. Meanwhile, the PM´s Personal Secretariat said 95 percent of the works on budget has already been completed.
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