BIRATNAGAR, March 18: The Province 1 government has managed to spend only about 32% of development budget over the first eight months of the current fiscal year 2019/20.

Failing to spend

January 14, 2020 08:15 am

When the government fails to speed up infrastructure development, it could mean three things. One, the government has not been able to manage fund for development, meaning there is little capital to spend. Two, the government has enough money to spend but it has no proper plans for the same. Three, the government has commitment for speeding up capital spending process but the procedural hurdles are way too many or our bureaucracy is too lethargic. But in either of three cases, it is the government or the people in the government who are responsible. Nepal’s story has been that, despite being a struggling economy, we somehow manage funds for development but we simply fail to spend. Here is the irony, the irony that is making the mockery of capacity of almost every government, of federal democratic Nepal that needs to be sorted out once and for all.