KATHMANDU: Former finance minister Dr Ram Sharan Mahat warned that the economy was in crisis. “It can crash anytime,” he said addressing Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) employees here today. If the present trend continues the crisis will be deep, he said. He claimed that the economy was surviving only due to the policies undertaken in his tenure. “There are lots of negative symptoms in the economy,” he said. However, he did not provide data based accounts to support the claims.

Decreasing export and remittance have created anomalies in the balance of payment, said Dr Mahat. Nepali industries are in insecurity and power shortage is deepening their grief, he said. “How long the economy can survive on remittance?” he asked.

Dr Mahat expressed his distress at political appointments in state-own enterprises. “Political appointments are bankrupting the state-owned enterprises,” he said adding that the Nepali Congress is against politicization.

The government has started politicizing NRB since some time, he accused. “It is a portent of the bad fate of Nepali economy,” he said.