“However, relaxation this year will not be done in a blanket manner, as done in the past. We will decide the waiver on case to case basis, depending on their nature and priority ratings,” said a senior MoF official.[break]
The ministry decided to show flexibility on the norms after Ministry of Physical Planning and Works complained it of blocking Railway Department, which was provided with additional budget of Rs 300 million, and Kathmandu-Tarai fast track project, which also got additional fund, from spending the new release meant for land acquisition.
The government had imposed the cap, under which ministries are not allowed to spend more than 40 of their total capital allocations in the last quarter and more than 20 percent of their total capital allocation in the last month of the fiscal year, mainly to encourage round the year operations of development projects and check haphazard and ineffective use of resources at the last hour of the fiscal year.
“Its objective is noble. But we have decided not to be rigid in case of national priority and sensitive projects, for it could contravene with country´s developmental needs and people´s aspirations,” said the source.
Finance Minister Barsha Man Pun said that the MoF will offer relaxation to the national priority projects. However, respective ministries would need to assure that openness to spend more would not result in imprudent use of resources.
“We are ready to cooperate with the ministries to step up their development works. But they must approach for the relaxation on project to project basis. We do not want to see scarce resources being used purposelessly,” said Pun.
Pun, who took the stock of capital spending performances of all the ministries and their departments on Monday, expressed dissatisfaction over low spending of development budget. “It stands at a meager 40 percent in 10 months. This is a very dismal performance,” said Pun, and urged the secretaries of all the ministries to work with more commitment.
During the review meeting, some of the secretaries had pointed out late contracting of projects, instability and strikes in different parts of the country as major reasons behind low spending. However, Pun debunked their claims.
“It is true the situation in recent period has been difficult to execute development works. But I do not agree with some of your arguments. If MoF, operating in same situation, can attain 19.6 percent growth in revenue collection and private sector too can increase exports by 15 percent,” Pun said, questioning, “Why cannot developmental agencies attain similar performance?”
Apart from instructing the secretaries to work more professionally, he also asked them not to push for unnecessary programs in the upcoming budget.
He also asked all the ministries to suggest at least one new and meaningful program for the upcoming budget so that people could feel that developmental benefits are reaching them. “And I also suggest you to make proposal of only those programs of which basic ground works have been done. This is crucial to make sure those are implemented as soon as the programs are announced,” said Pun.
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