Talking to media persons on Monday, former finance minister Dr Ram Sharan Mahat said that the Nepal Development Strategy Paper (NDSP), which the government is to present as its principal development paper, is not a document of political consensus and thus lacks national ownership.
However, Dr Mahat stressed that the Nepali Congress is neither pushing for a cancellation of the meeting nor is it planning to boycott it and added that the government has failed to create an inspiring environment among the political parties, civil society and the private sector.
“What we demand at the movement is that the government initiate a serious attempt to make revisions in the document to correct a series of serious numerous inconsistencies and anomalies,” he said.
Referring to a number of inconsistencies in the document, Mahat said the document has estimated the growth of gross domestic savings from 8 percent to 18.2 percent of GDP and of capital formation from 21 percent to 39 percent of GDP in 2011. “The document is silent on how such unrealistic growth can be achieved at a time when investment confidence in the private sector is the weakest in history,” he said.
In one more example of ad hoc estimates contained in the document, a paper distributed on the occasion said that the document has vowed to make an outlay of 12 percent of GDP for the education sector whereas this outlay is already at a level close to 17 percent.
The NDSP has failed to recognize that the present government inherited an economy with strong foundations and there are enough indications to suspect that the government iintends to reverse past economic reforms, Dr Mahat said.
Also speaking on the occasion, central working committee member of the NC Dr Minendra Rijal said the document lacks a clear and convincing strategy to deal with major economic and social problems like poverty and unemployment. Dr Rijal also came down heavily on the government for its failure to spend the outlays made for development purposes.
Professor Biswhomber Pyakurel said that the NDSP has tried to fool the donor community and intellectuals with the help of misleading statistics and that a majority of the estimates contained in the document are based on a false assumption and therefore implausible.
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