“The cabinet last week endorsed the restructuring plan. We will have the new structure in place pretty soon,” Bhumi Ram Sharma, deputy spokesperson of MoF, said.[break]
Under the change, Sharma said the MoF would reorient Foreign Aid Coordination Division as International Financial Assistance Coordination Division and Law Division as Law and Advisory Division.
It would also merge existing two divisions into one and split another division into two.
The divisions that would undergo merger are Revenue Advisory Committee (RAC), which exists as a division in the Ministry, and Revenue Division. The new division after the merger would function as Revenue Management Division.
The division that would be split into two is Economic Operations and Policy Analysis Division (EOPAD). This division would be split into Economic Policy Analysis Division and Financial Sector Management Division.
“RAC and Revenue Division are being merged because their works are closely interlinked. Existence of two separate divisions to give policy suggestions and taking policy decisions respectively was only slowing decision making process,” Shishir Kumar Dhungana, chief of Administration Division at the MoF, told Republica.
With the merger, the MoF officials expressed hope its revenue operations will be efficient and effective.
“We are splitting the EOPAD also because this division is overloaded with works due to rapid expansion of financial sectors and fresh complexities emerging on the economic front,” said Dhungana.
Once split, the newly formed Economic Policy Analysis Division will look after macro-economy, keep track of economic affairs and take prompt steps to mitigate challenges that economy might face now and again.
The Financial Sector Management Division, on the other hand, would concentrate on monitoring and taking due policy decisions on banking, insurance and financial system, capital markets and derivatives markets, among others.
Fundamentally, the ministry is splitting the EOPAD because owing to its regular workload, it failed to aptly identify and suggest solutions to problems seen on key economic sectors in the past.
“Hence, the new Economic Policy Analysis Division will intensively carry out researches, keep tracks of changes happening within and outside the country and forecast their impacts on economy,” said Dhungana.
It would also look over the debt market, make projections on domestic debt demand, prepare guideline for international financial institutions to raise debt in domestic currency and oversee works related to domestic and foreign debt management until the Debt Management Office is formed.
To facilitate its works, the MoF will be forming a Group of Experts and Fiscal Projection Unit under the Economic Policy Analysis Division.
Officials said the restructuring will not bring any changes in the number of divisions and staff that MoF works with. Presently, the finance ministry has nine divisions and 233 staff.
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