Economy secondary issue in crisis: PM

Kathmandu, Apr 19

Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has said that the government policy and programmes for the coming fiscal year 2020/21 would be focused on COVID-19 control and relief activities.

“Entire population is affected by the coronavirus pandemic. So this is not the time to pledge to make people rich but to save lives and rehabilitate livelihood activities,” he said in an interview with the state-owned media on Friday.

He said that the policy and programmes will be directed to providing relief to the workers of informal sectors as well as the poor and marginalised people. However, we must not forget that the crisis will impact the rich and poor all, said PM Oli.

However, he maintained that the economy would be secondary issue during the time of crisis, saving lives of people would be of prime importance.

PM Oli refuted the idea of high-level mechanism to manage the COVID-19.

According to him, when the countries having minority government do not have such mechanisms, it is useless for people to tell a two-third majority government to have another mechanism to look after the issue.

“Have you heard about a high-level mechanism in any developed or developing country? Is there a mechanism in the USA including the democrats and republicans?” he questioned.

 “This government runs as per the public mandate and constitution. It will fulfill its responsibility in an accountable way. We are in dialogue with all concerned stakeholders,” he said.

Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 20 April 2020.