KATHMANDU, April 26: Former finance ministers have suggested the government come up with a reality-based budget along with enforcing austerity measures effectively through the budget for the next fiscal year.
In a meeting with Finance Minister Barsha Man Pun on Thursday, the former finance ministers urged the government not to endorse a populist budget for FY 2024/25 at a time when the government is facing a huge crunch of financial resources.
“As it is not appropriate to extend the budget size extensively, it is better to allocate budget only for national pride projects, national priority projects and other under-construction projects,” said Bishnu Prasad Paudel, former finance minister from the CPN-UML.
Former finance ministers discuss liquidity crisis
The government is drafting the budget for the next fiscal year amid the slump in revenue collection due to the ongoing economic slowdown. The budget will be announced on May 28 this year. The government this year has been facing the challenge of revitalizing economic activities by boosting the confidence of the private sector.
Former Finance Minister Yubaraj Khatiwada criticized the exaggerated budget ceiling of Rs 1.8 trillion fixed by the National Planning Commission for the upcoming fiscal year.
“The inflated budget size has consistently posed challenges for project implementation almost every year,” said Khatiwada.
Khatiwada was critical of the central government for the wrong trend of providing only the financial resources to the sub-national governments, without handing them any liabilities. “The central government should not assume all the liabilities itself but rather delegate them to the provincial and local governments as well.”
The former finance ministers also sought the common consensus among the political parties to make the implementation of the budget effective. According to them, the collaborative efforts at the ministerial levels will be meaningful for the effective utilization of the funds allocated for the development projects.
Former Finance Minister from Rastriya Prajatantra Party Prakash Chandra Lohani urged all the ministers, political parties and state mechanism to build up consensus to uplift the country from possible economic crisis. “While the policymakers need to think over it, all the ministries need to come together for collaborative effort,” said Lohani.
Former Finance Minister from the CPN-Maoist (Center) Janardan Sharma requested all the constitutional organs and regulatory bodies including the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority, Department of Revenue Investigation and Central Investigation Bureau of the Nepal Police, among others, to assume full accountability to increase the confidence of civil servants. “It will help facilitate the working mechanism at the bureaucratic level,” Sharma added.
