CPN-MC may not send his replacement in the Cabinet till the probe is over
KATHMANDU, JULY 6
Finance Minister Janardan Sharma, who has been accused of changing tax rates to benefit business houses and deleting CCTV footage of May 28 night from his office, resigned from his post today.
His resignation follows formation of a special parliamentary probe committee to investigate the alleged interference in budget making process by outsiders.
Both the opposition and the ruling party's lawmakers had been seeking Sharma's resignation. The CPN-UML intensified its attack against Sharma after the news that the CCTV footage captured at the finance ministry on the night of May 28, a day before the budget was presented in the House of Representatives, had got deleted. NC General Secretary Gagan Kumar Thapa and other NC leaders had also been seeking Sharma's resignation.
Speaking from the rostrum of the House of Representatives today, Sharma announced his resignation, claiming that he had done nothing wrong in the budget making process. He said he was resigning to extend full cooperation to the parliamentary probe committee.
Sharma said finance ministry officials incorporated policies in the budget to encourage domestic production, spur industrialisation, and to reduce import from foreign countries.
He said the budget was aimed to benefit marginalised groups and communities.
"General public is being misled about my role in the budgetary process. I want the parliamentary probe panel to thoroughly investigate the matter," Sharma said.
Earlier, when Speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota told the HoR that Sharma would deliver a speech on a matter of national importance, CPN-UML lawmakers boycotted his speech. Before boycotting the House, UML lawmaker Yogesh Bhattarai told the House that Sharma's guilt had already been proven and now the parliamentary probe committee would decide how he should be punished.
He said Sharma had no moral grounds to speak in the House as a minister and UML lawmakers would boycott any such speech.
CPN-MC Chief Whip Dev Prasad Gurung said Sharma had quit to help the probe panel do its job and the party possibly would not send his replacement in the Cabinet till the probe was over.
Parliamentary panel to conduct probe
Speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota today formed a Parliamentary Probe Committee to investigate the allegation of outsider intervention to change the tax rates in the new fiscal budget.
Media reports stated that Finance Minister Sharma allowed two outsiders to change tax rates in the budget to benefit 'favourite business houses'.
The probe panel comprises Khagaraj Adhikari, Bhanubhakta Dhakal, Bimala BK, and Pradeep Kumar Gyawali from UML, Dev Prasad Gurung and Shakti Bahadur Basnet from CPN-Maoist Centre, Pushpa Bhusal and Sitaram Mahato from Nepali Congress, Laxman Lal Karna from Democratic Socialist Party-Nepal, Sarala Kumari Yadav from CPN (Unified Socialist), and Surendra Prasad Yadav from Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal.
The probe panel was formed as the CPN-UML kept raising the alleged manipulation in the budget in the House.
Spokesperson for the Parliament Secretariat Rojnath Pandey said the probe panel would submit a report within 10 days after it started investigation.
He said the committee's mandate was to visit the site in question and record statements of the people involved in the alleged manipulation before submitting the report.
A version of this article appears in the print on July 7, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
