The MoF also asked them to come up with a clear spending plan so that the government could be assured that cent percent of capital budget allocated to them for development purposes will be spent by the end of 2012/13.[break]
The MoF issued the stern instructions to the Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction (MoPR) and the Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation (MoFSC) after they continued to drag their feet to even get their top priority (P1) programs approved from the National Planning Commission.
Officials of the MoPR, during the meeting, reported that the ministry´s capital spending so far remains dismally low at 5.69 percent of the annual allocation. The MoFSC too reported its capital spending at a meager 11.23 percent of its total annual capital budget.
“Capital spending for this fiscal year is already low as we could not set aside even what we spent in 2011/12. And the nightmare for us and economy is that the trend suggests some of the important ministries might not even be able to spend this lowered capital allocations,” said Finance Secretary Shanta Raj Subedi.
In order to assure a sharp turnaround in the situation, Subedi instructed the secretaries of the two ministries to significantly jack up their capital spending. “You must increase your capital spending to at least 25 percent (of annual allocations) by the first half of this fiscal year,” said Subedi.
He also asked them to develop a clear spending plan and adhere to it so that they could be able to fully utilize development budget allocated to them.
Addressing the secretaries, Finance Minister Barsha Man Pun informed them that dismal capital spending would slow consumption, thereby denting the overall economic growth outlook of the country.
Dhruba Kumar Sharma, secretary of MoPR, and Krishna Chandra Pokharel, secretary of MoFSC, were present at the meeting.
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