Govt told to revise foreign aid policy

KATHMANDU: The International Relations and Labour Committee of the Legislature-Parliament has directed the government to revise the Foreign Aid Policy into an act.

Issuing the directives to the government, today's meeting of the Committee urged the government to pay attention to national interests while accepting foreign aid.

The meeting also directed the government for an effective implementation of the system of spending foreign assistance provided by donor agencies through the government, and to only accept foreign aid on big projects rather than small ones.

The government was also urged to establish a regular monitoring and evaluation system of the projects run with the foreign aid.

A total of Rs 28.21 million foreign aid has been mobilised in the current fiscal year.

During the meeting, Committee members stressed strong and effective implementation of the policy of spending the foreign aid through the one-door system.

They also suggested ending the trend of budget lapsing as the current fiscal year has been declared as the Budget Implementation Year and increasing capacity of the government to spend the budget.

Committee members Bharat Khadka, Lalbabu Yadav, Rajan Bhattarai, Lalita Regmi, Prema Lama, Amar Sharma, Ram Chandra Sah and Ashok Kumar Mandal said that the government should show its activeness to spend the budget as seen in receiving foreign aid.

State Minister for Federal Affairs and Local Development Kunti Kumari Sahi informed that over Rs 7.16 billion of foreign aid has been allocated for 23 projects under the Ministry.

She added that a review meeting would be held with foreign donors to evaluate the progress in this regard. The State Minister further assured of making foreign aid transparent.

Joint Secretary at the Ministry, Purna Chandra Bhattarai ,informed that foreign aid was mobilised as per the concept of "one district: one national programme."

Similarly, Joint Secretary at the Ministry of Finance, Bainkutha Aryal informed that the Ministry was working to bring the act related to budget management.