Kathmandu, July 16

Programmes included in the Line Ministry Budgetary Information System (LMBIS) have been authorised to spend budget allocated to them for this fiscal from today. As per the provision of the budget of fiscal year 2017-18, the aforementioned programmes have received the authority to spend the budget from the first day of the new fiscal.

The government has introduced a provision through the budget that the implementing authority will get the expenditure authorisation from the first day of the fiscal year itself. The government has brought this new rule to encourage capital expenditure, which has been slow in the previous years.

The Ministry of Finance (MoF) has changed the system of programme approval and expenditure authorisation so that the allocated budget is spent within the scheduled timeframe. With this provision in place, chiefs of the various approved programmes or the concerned authorities can now spend budget from today itself.

“The major reasons of slow pace of capital expenditure has always been the delay in approving programmes and providing expenditure authorisation, which hopefully will not be an obstacle from this fiscal onwards,” said Kebal Prasad Bhandari, chief of Budget and Programme Division of MoF.

According to the provision of the budget, the District Treasury Comptroller Offices will release the budget to the respective implementing units as per the programmes on a trimester basis as directed by the LMBIS of MoF.

With this provision, implementing units will not have to wait for the execution authority from the line ministries. The budget of this fiscal year has assigned the spending authority directly to the chiefs of the approved programmes and the implementing authorities will not have to seek permission from line ministries.

Previously, the line ministries were usually blamed for creating obstacles while providing expenditure authority to the implementing units, which consequently delayed the implementation of the programmes.

Meanwhile, the government has also changed the programme approval procedure. Previously, the programmes included in LMBIS had to be approved again by the National Planning Commission (NPC) before implementation. However, from this year the programmes which have been included in LMBIS do not have to seek approval from NPC to start implementing them.

“This budget has simplified the implementation process, which will speed up capital expenditure this year,” Bhandari said.