Kathmandu, December 19

Finance Minister Yubaraj Khatiwada has stressed on the need to amend a few policies to ensure financial discipline.

Addressing the concerns raised by lawmakers on government’s failure to expedite development budget spending at the Parliamentary Finance Committee meeting here today, Khatiwada said, “It is necessary to remove some provisions in existing policies that are affecting smooth implementation of the budget.”

Citing that low spending in big projects and their tepid progress will affect financial discipline, Khatiwada emphasised on the need for binding prerequisites to ensure timely project completion and effective spending.

Like in previous years, the government has failed to enhance its budget implementation capacity, with capital expenditure at just 9.05 per cent in first five months of ongoing fiscal.

During the meeting today, Khatiwada also said that contractors and developers play a crucial role in the entire ecosystem of budget.

Similarly, he also said that both local and provincial governments should be highly responsible towards project development, its execution, spending and maintaining budgetary and fiscal discipline.

Speaking at the meeting, Ram Kumar Phuyal, member at the National Planning Commission (NPC), informed that development budget expenditure in these four months is almost five per cent less compared to the first four months of last fiscal year. “Government’s inability to improve spending will directly affect developmental goals and economic growth target,” he said, adding that the government should identify major obstacles behind budget spending and address them gradually.

He also criticised the government’s trend of spending a majority of budget towards the end of the fiscal.

Meanwhile, Finance Secretary Rajan Khanal said that development budget spending was low as multi-year projects were not progressing properly.