After grilling the senior officials and Finance Minister Surendra Pandey on Tuesday, the committee expressed dissatisfaction over the flouting of financial discipline and release of budget at the final hour by finance ministers after the Constituent Assembly polls. [break]
“There is a need to correct this trend. Hence, we have decided to ask MoF to furnish details of such extra-budgetary expenses within a week,” PAC Chairman Ram Krishna Yadav said.
During their deliberations, lawmakers raised questions over the effectiveness of such budget in realizing the true development output. They tagged such release of budget as being guided by vested interest and interest of the influential groups, which ultimately leave the true needy people deprived.
“This practice has facilitated and spurred corruption in the name of development works and hence must be stopped,” said Nepali Congress lawmaker Usha Gurung.
Among others, CPN UML lawmaker Lal Babu Pundit noted that the practice has largely hurt the spirit of balanced development and social justice. “People have lost faith in the output of government run development programs. This is a serious issue,” he said.
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