The OPMCM issued the instruction during a meeting with the senior MoF officials in accordance with the 198-point Governance and Economic Reform Program that Prime Minister Dr Baburam Bhattarai announced a few months ago. [break]
PM Bhattarai had vowed to make public the aid provided by and activities carried out by INGOs mainly as many of them have been funneling their aid in Nepal without notifying the government. Officials and experts have been criticizing that many of INGOs are providing aid in areas that that are not Nepal´s priority. INGOs were also facing criticism for lack of transparency and lack of willingness to funnel aid through the national budget.
“Making public a detailed report on aid provided by and outcomes achieved by INGO operations is one important part of economic reforms. Hence, MoF should waste no time in compiling the annual budgets, spending and outcomes achieved by the INGOs and making it public,” said Krishan Hari Baskota, secretary at the OPMCM.
As the Coordinator of the mechanism formed to execute the reform program, Baskota also asked the MoF to fix the date for holding the Economic Summit -- featured in the PM´s reform program -- at the earliest.
In his briefing on activities undertaken by the MoF to implement the reform program, Finance Secretary Shanta Raj Subedi said that his Ministry has begun an exercise to set up a "think tank". By setting up the think-tank, PM Bhattarai had said the government would be able to give pace to the much-needed socio-economic transformation of the country.
Subedi also expressed commitment to complete works on setting up a Fund to Build New Nepal soon.
In his instruction, Baskota asked the MoF to create self employment opportunities for 15,000 youths by issuing loans worth Rs 3 billion from the Youth Self-Employment Fund within this fiscal year.
He also instructed the MoF to make arrangements for decentralizing stock transactions in all five development regions. Responding to it, Subedi said Nepal Stock Exchange is making preparations to start share transactions in Biratnagar from mid-April 2013.
Among others, Secretary Baskota also instructed the MoF to trade out people who have been spending lavishly on personal and social functions and verify if they have been paying due taxes to the government. He also stressed on the need to step up capital spending in order to create jobs and boost consumption.
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