KATHMANDU, July 4: Chairman of the main opposition party CPN-UML, KP Sharma Oli has asked Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba if he has reached a stage where he cannot do anything. Outraged by the government's indifference to the controversies surrounding the budget for FY 2022/23 and its investigation, Oli repeatedly questioned Prime Minister Deuba in the House of Representatives on Monday, calling him "absent-minded".
Chairman Oli said the country and the Cabinet should be run by the prime minister and the prime minister should be held accountable for any incident. “The budget was compromised by businessmen and outsiders. There can be no bigger example of indiscipline and chaos than this. What could be worse than destroying the economy? The Prime Minister should be accountable for this. Where is his response to this incident?” Oli asked.
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He accused the prime minister of failing to take action against a minister for fear of breaking the alliance even when the country was ruined and the economy collapsed. Oli also expressed outrage that those who questioned the country's values were threatened.
Finance Minister Janardan Sharma has been accused of manipulating the tax rates by bringing unauthorized outsiders to the ministry on the night of May 28, the day before the budget announcement.
Similarly, lawmakers, in a number of parliament meetings, have repeatedly been demanding Minister Sharma to provide the CCTV footage to defend the allegation against him. Last Monday (July 27), the CWPF registered a 'right to information’ complaint, seeking to recover the footage of 12 hours — from 6 PM of May 28 to 6 AM of May 29 — of the activities recorded at the Ministry.
However, Finance Minister Sharma refused to provide the CCTV footage of the ministry’s activities on the night before the date of budget announcement, stating that the system at the ministry is capable of maintaining storage of data only till 13 days of the recording.
