Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, March 7:

Contrary to media reports, following his meeting with development partners in Paris, finance minister Madhukar SJB Rana today said, “The multilateral donor agencies have assured of giving aid to Nepal provided it continues reform initiatives effectively.” “Aid from The World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) would continue for Nepal on poverty reduction programmes and reform initiatives taken by the government,” Rana told The Himalayan Times. The level of foreign aid may rise than the present level. During his meeting with donors at the ministerial forum, Rana presented a paper on behalf of Nepal on ‘Moving from Assessment and Constraints to Opportunities and Action’.

He said that he had presented Nepal’s complete economic, political and development outlook at the Paris meeting of various countries. Donors have asked Nepal to lift emergency, respect human rights and create a roadmap to carry forward development. They assured of hike in aid accordingly. The meeting also was a sort of confidence building measure among multilateral donor agencies as Nepal has always respected transparency, rule of law and a value based system, he said, at a press meet held today. “The effectiveness of development aid was also discussed at length at the meeting,” informed Rana. “Revenue mobilisation at present is taking place at the rate of Rs 50 million daily,” informed the minister. The government wants to pursue foreign aid policy statement of 2002 to mobilise aid to enhance national capital stock and its productivity to generate internal revenue and to finance critical capital inputs, he informed journalists.

The 2002 Aid policy seeks to broad-base programme approach with reliance on grant aid and concessional loans, while minimising the use of foreign consultants, minister briefed development partners in Paris. Rana disclosed that the major weakness of the PRSP/Tenth Plan (2002-2007) is a total lack of private sector participation in setting economic growth targets. “With active private sector participation, Nepal can ach-ieve growth comparable to China and India, while servicing as an economic bridge between China and the South Asia.” Replying to a separate query, Rana said that those who did not pay back bank loans and are termed as ‘wilful defaulters’ will be excluded from the society, their passports will be seized and they will be stopped from opening new business enterprises. In this regard, a detail proposal would be submitted to the cabinet for approval, the minister informed The Himalayan Times.

Rana said that PRSP lacks a proper plan to fully utilise national hydro, forestry and agricultural

resource potential of Nepal. It also does not give due considerations to the private sector that plays a leading role in boosting growth and employment creation in the country. It also lacks a vision for distribution of wealth across castes, communities, classes and areas. The minister said that social mobilisation for empowerment of the poor is a major national need if poverty is to be eradicated quickly. “PRSP fails to deal with the proximate causes of insurgency, which are to do with youth unemployment and alienation, malgovernance, and exclusion of ethnic minorities. New programmes must be developed to address this critical national need,” the minister added.