KATHMANDU, JUNE 6
Finance Minister Prakash Sharan Mahat today told the House of Representatives that Ram Krishna Shrestha was hired as a junior assistant but he had no role in levying taxes on various goods, including imported products.
He said Shrestha who had been a typist at the finance ministry for years, was hired for the job as he was able, efficient and competent.
Responding to lawmakers' queries in the House, Minister Mahat said Shrestha was not privy to confidential discussions on the budget and he did what the responsible authorities told him to enter in the budgetary document.
Shrestha had no role in the decision-making process, Mahat added.
Minister Mahat said that he had not allowed any middlemen to interfere in the budgetary process and business houses with vested interest were trying to build a narrative that unauthorised persons had interfered in the budgetary process.
Mahat said the government had judiciously taxed imported electric vehicles, but the government was also concerned that electric vehicle dealers were not transferring the benefit they got from the government to their clients.
CPN-UML Chair KP Sharma Oli said the government had got benefit of doubt after the finance minister's clarification, but there was no justification for allowing marijuana/cannabis farming.
"There is no plan to increase agro products, but there is a pledge to allow cultivation of marijuana/cannabis," he added.
Oli said if licence was issued for marijuana/cannabis farming, local farmers who take small benefits from wild marijuana plants would be arrested and tormented.
Oli also said if the budget was passed in the House on the strength of majority, it would fail to give desired results in practice as was the case last year.
He said the government had denied outsiders' interference in the budget last year, but did not say that it would not repeat such mistakes.
Nepali Congress leader Bimalendra Nidhi said that Oli's speech in the House was not worthy of a response and his own party lawmakers found it boring.
He said the finance minister had tried to improve all sectors, but success would depend on the implementation of the budget. He, however, said the cooperatives sector, which was among the three pillars of the economy, was being ignored.
Earlier, Independent lawmaker Amresh Kumar Singh had said that a parliamentary committee should be formed to probe the interference of middlemen in the budgetary process. He said star hotels were paying very low taxes for imported salmon, but common people were bearing the brunt of high taxes on daily commodities such as onions and potatoes.
A version of this article appears in the print on June 7, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
