Dismal capital spending
The Himalayan Times
19 December 2019
Dismal
capital spending
Nepal has been practicing the
system of annual programme planning and budgeting for decades in more or less
the same pattern. The Ministry of Finance (MoF) is the responsible authority of
the government that formulates the yearly budget in close collaboration with the
related line ministries and departments in line with the policy and guidelines
prepared by the National Planning Commission (NPC). As outlined in the new
constitution, the MoF has to present the annual budget by May 25 of each
financial year to the Parliament for deliberation and approval. The government’s
annual plan and budgets is approved once the overall deliberation on the
programme and budget in the Parliament is completed.
Soon after the approval of the
annual plan and budget, the MoF used to instruct other line ministries and
departments to release the budget spending authority letter to their district-based
offices. Now, the federal structure is in place for the last two years. All the
provincial governments have to prepare their annual plan and budget
accordingly. This system has further complicated the implementation of annual
plan and budget especially the development projects, thus hampering the speedy
process of development. Due to this cumbersome process, the level of capital
budget spending continues to be dismal “Capital budget spending dismal 9.05 per
cent in first five months” (THT, December 18, Page 1).
Unless the government enhances
the capacity of bureaucrats to plan and execute the programmes and revisits its
weak and slow bureaucratic process, timely and speedy implementation of
development and infrastructure projects cannot be expected resulting in poor
performance of the government.
Rai
Biren Bangdel
Maharajgunj
