KATHMANDU, Feb 19: With 32.5 percent revenue growth and donors responding positively to Nepal’s support call, the government is well on target in terms of resource mobilization, but it has seriously lagged behind on capital spending.
Interestingly, the dismal picture exists mainly on the political programs announced with high sound and priority. The hefty Rs 31 billion budget allocated by the government incorporates 58 programs, which are together cited as a package for building a New Nepal.[break]
However, of the total Rs 91 billion allocated for the development purpose, by the first seven months of the fiscal year the government has spent only about Rs 11.13 billion.
Krishna Hari Baskota, revenue secretary, attributed the slow capital spending to the delayed budget announcement, which came on October instead of mid-July, 2008, and its subsequent procedural impacts.
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However, sources said such a dismal picture emerged because the government had announced the programs without proper consultations and exercises. “The programs on New Nepal were new and we had no set design and operating manuals to follow for their execution,” he said.
Most importantly, concerned ministries and implementing agencies themselves were not aware of the programs before the Finance Minister actually announced them. As a result, the state machinery was not prepared to deliver them.
Youth self-employment program, cooperatives grocery in every village development committee (VDC), study for mid-hills people’s highway, republican gate construction and the study for new parliament building are some among the programs the government announced with high priority.
Contrary to the priority attached on them in the budget, concerned officials remain in the dark over modality for implementing the self-employment program. “For that matter, we still do not know how the design of the Republican Gate will be and who will implement it,” said the source.
Officials at the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives also said they still do not know how the cooperatives groceries are to be registered and monitored in districts where District Cooperatives Offices are not present.
So much so, even the double block grant program to the VDCs from the regular Rs 1 million has faced a similar setback. Although the government announced it will be raised on the basis of performance indicators, it took one full month to finalize the criteria for doing so.
“We also had to look at facts like territory size, population, and the cost (of transportation and implementing development projects),” said the source.
Apart from these confusions, officials stated that the absence of members at the National Planning Commission (NPC) also caused slow spending of capital budget.
Baskota, who expressed confidence that the government would meet the ambitious revenue target of Rs 140 billion by the end of the year, told myrepublica.com that the government has geared up preparations necessary for mplementation of the programs.
