KATHMANDU: Finance Minister Bishnu Prasad Poudel said the government was bringing annual fiscal policy and program in a way to completely check the tradition of budgetary virements from the coming fiscal year.
“We are formulating a policy to stop the wrong practice of preparing budgets on a whim rather not on the rationale and transferring budgets in between. Next year we would introduce programs in a way there is no space for budget transfer,” he said.
Not only the federal, provincial and local governments but also the government offices have been practicing budget transfer and introducing new initiatives /activities in the mid of the fiscal year.
He argued that the new policy measures would be devised to check the prevailing tradition of formulating incoherent plans and executing them in a weak manner.
The Finance Minister also urged the government offices only to focus spending on the most essential activities as the government has come up with a strict austerity plan.
“Revenue mobilization capacity has reduced by 15 to 20 percent in compared to last year. Therefore, there is no option to cut off spending and adopt austerity”.
He also said the foreign aid money pledged by the development partners was also lowered which he argued has resulted in troubles in completing the planned projects and programs of donor funding.
“The international donor community asks us to spend the already-disbursed money first. But, we do not pay attention to that end. How can we receive assistance when the conditions agreed are not met?”
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