KATHMANDU: Members of the Public Account Committee in the parliament have demanded the Auditor General inform the Committee about the major reasons for the increasing size of government arrears.
In a meeting of the Committee held today to discuss issues about financial responsibility, economic discipline, and the existing situation of arrears, the committee members questioned the government when the situation forcing to give the 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 middle persons,” they said, inquiring about the possible ways to sort out the arrear issues.
During the meeting, Auditor General Tankamani Sharma apprised the meeting that the total size of arrears at the federal, provincial, 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.
As Auditor General said, the size of arrears is increasing each year due to a lack of expenditures transparency in the absence of effects on the part of regulating bodies, and some improvements are expected only when the reports of the Auditor General Office and submissions 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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