BUDGET TO SPEND
The Kathmandu Post
4th February
2017
BUDGET
TO SPEND
The
normal practice of the government at the beginning of every fiscal year is to
send budget spending authorization (BSA) letter to their respective ministries
once the budget is approved by Parliament. This is done by the Ministry of
Finance (MoF). After getting this authority from MoF, each ministry is
responsible for sending BSA letter to their respective departments and regional
directorates which, in turn, forward their BSA letter to their district based
offices. Because of this tiring and lengthy process, most of the district based
offices get their BSA letter after three or four months. This traditional way
of releasing the BSA from the centre down to the district level is one of the
main reasons behind low level of capital expenditure. Another hindrance is lengthy
tender process of selecting the lowest bidder for large infrastructure
projects.
Looking
at these hurdles, it is not surprising to know that the government has only been
able to spend only 29 percent of Rs. 1,048.9 billion during the last seven
months of this fiscal year. (“Govt
bodies at a loss for lack of right to spend” 1 Feb. Page 1) . For the first
time in the history, this year the annual budget was introduced one and a-half
months prior to the start of the new fiscal year to facilitate the timely
release of BSA. Likewise, the MoF, which is responsible for preparing the
annual budget, managed to provide BSA to all the line ministries on the first
day of this fiscal year. In-spite of these improvements, the government, its line
ministries and departments failed to spend the desired level of allocated
capital budgets in the last six months.
It
is said that many government bodies are yet to get BSA from their respective
line ministries. If this situation persists, a large portion of capital budget
allocated under them will remain underspent. How can the government achieve its
set targets and objectives is something worth pondering over? Has the
government and its concerned ministries put any effort to increase the level of
capital expenditures to meet the needs of physical infrastructures? Do the
government and its line ministries have a strong monitoring and supervision
system in place? Is the government serious enough to improve its budget
spending capacity? Are the line ministries regularly being supervised by the National
Planning Commission (NPC) to find out whether they forwarded BSA to their
district based offices on time? Unless, these issues are addressed timely, the
level of amount to be spent under infrastructure projects will not improve.
Rai Biren Bangdel
Maharjgunj, Kathmandu
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