KATHMANDU: Youth leader of main opposition party, Nepali Congress, Gagan Thapa has claimed that the government is losing the opportunity of minimizing unnecessary expenses as a means of mitigating the COVID-19 impact on the economy.
Taking part in the parliament’s discussion on ‘the principles and priorities in the forthcoming budget’ NC lawmaker Thapa said although the government had the opportunity to minimize the extravagant expenses and prove it, penny-wise planner, it has missed the chance.
He remarked that the government had got the option of reducing wasteful expenses working as per the recommendation of the Public Expenditure Review Commission, the government’s priorities put forward so far reveal its unwillingness to do so.
“We are missing the opportunity of reducing extravagances as recommended by the Public Expenditure Review Commission,” NC lawmaker Thapa said, “ the government should heed it.”
He added that although the world economy is clamping down by 3% and encountering the worst crisis in the last 90 years, the budget seems ignorant about the fact.
Thapa criticized the Finance Minister for ‘undermining’ the lawmakers and skipping vital issues in the pre-budget discussion.
Commenting about the performance of the government, he claimed that the economy could not have been much better even if there had been no pandemic as the government had failed to work as per priority even before the coronavirus outbreak.
Denying the government’s blame that the industrialization had slowed down due to the privatization put forward by Nepali Congress, lawmaker Thapa challenged the government to set up some industries in its tenure.
As proof of the flimsiness of the FM’s remark, he presented the FM’s claim on increasing the ambit of tax. “The FM has claimed he would increase the of tax ambit,” Thapa added, “When everyone is shrunk at worst, how can you increase the it?”
The government is planning to introduce a new budget for the forthcoming financial year on May 28.
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