KATHMANDU,  May 19: Members of the Public Accounts Committee of parliament have demanded the auditor general inform the committee about major reasons for an increasing size of government arrears.

In a meeting of the committee held on Friday to discuss issues about financial responsibility, economic discipline and existing situation of arrears, the committee members questioned the government when the situation forcing them to give commission to pay tax would come to an end.  

They raised concerns over the ' increasing crisis for economic discipline'.    

They were of the view of implementing the mobile banking and ATM system in the payment system to 'discourage irregularities to some extent'. "The nation is marred by the intervention of middlepersons," they said, inquiring about the possible ways to sort out the arrear issues. 

During the meeting, Auditor General Tankamani Sharma apprised the MPs that the total size of arrears at the federal, province and local levels is Rs 119.77 billion.  Of it, Rs 56 billion is in the federation, seven billion in the province and Rs 43 billion at the local levels. 

The auditor general said that the size of arrears is increasing each year due to lack of expenditure transparency in the absence of effectiveness on the part of regulating bodies and some improvements are expected only when the reports of the Office of the Auditor General and recommendations of the parliament and parliamentary committees over the issues are enforced. 

According to him, the use of budget in real estate and unproductive sectors has fueled the existing economic crisis.   The duplication of projects at the province and local levels is one of the reasons causing the high cost of the project. The cost and deadline in regard with some projects of national pride are yet to be determined.

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