“Some parties in the parliament are demanding supplementary budget. But as we have just about five months left in this fiscal year, there is no time to prepare supplementary budget and again the new budget for the next fiscal year,” said Adhikari.[break]
Talking to media persons, Adhikari said that delay in announcement of budget for the last three fiscal years has already robbed the country of precious development opportunities.
“We cannot afford to create similar situation next year as well,” said he, laying emphasis on early budget.”
Adhikari also made presentations on the mid-term review of the budget for the current fiscal year, which portrayed gloomy picture on development front and key macroeconomic indicators.
“We are set to witness expansion of economy by more than 4.5 percent, which is well above the target set for the year,” said Dr Pushkar Bajracharya, member of National Planning Commission.
Excluding the economic growth rate, the government had no good news to share to the public though.
The review report showed that the government has failed miserably in containing inflation at the promised level of 7 percent.
“In the six months, inflation remained at 11.3 percent,” said Revenue Secretary Krishna Hari Baskota.
Government´s capital spending during the period stood at just around 15 percent of the amount allocated for the year. As a result, Ministry of Finance has downsized the volume of capital spending for this year to Rs 110.10 billion from the original target of about Rs 129 billion.
Likewise, the government has so far managed to mobilize Rs 110.40 billion in revenue, recording a growth of 14.6 percent over what it had mobilized last year. However, the collection is much lower than the target set for the period.
“Although our exports increased, we could not make desired improvement in balance of payment situation because of small base of exports,” said Baskota.
Finance Secretary Rameshore Prasad Khanal attributed the low development spending to delay in announcement of full-fledged budget.
“The delay in announcing full budget delayed approval of the programs and tender process, hurting our development aspirations. We must learn from it and avoid emergence of similar situation in the future,” said he.
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