Parliament will decide the fate of budget: FM Sharma

Kathmandu, July 16

Finance Minister Janardan Sharma said on Friday that the parliament would decide the fate of the budget of the current Fiscal Year 2021/22.

“The parliament will have its say on the budget. It will decide whether to accept it or replace some programmes with new ones,” he said while speaking at a programme organised at the Ministry of Finance (MoF) today.

Former Finance Minister Bishnu Prasad Paudel had presented a budget of Rs. 1647 billion with the priority to the control and treatment of COVID-19, infrastructure development in health and connectivity, expediting the rehabilitation of business and economy, strengthening the welfare role of the state and creating resilient economy.  

Paudel had presented the budget through an ordinance as the parliament was dissolved.  But after the Supreme Court reinstated the House of Representatives on Monday stating that its dissolution was unconstitutional, there is now parliament to discuss the budget.

FM Sharma is set to publish a white paper on the status of the country’s economy.

According to him, since he is studying the status of the economy, resources available and demands of private sector and other groups of people, and set to issue a white paper, the announcement of the Monetary Policy for the next fiscal year will also be delayed.

The Nepal Rastra Bank was planning to announce the monetary policy next week. But it will be delayed in the pretext of changes in the budget since it has to be designed in accordance with the programmes announced in the budget and support the achievement of the annual economic growth target.

Governor of the central bank Maha Prasad Adhikari had indicated that an expansionary monetary policy was in the offing in order to meet the aim of business and economic rehabilitation programmes announced in the budget.

According to FM Sharma, the economic situation in the country is challenging.

He said that the capital market development was in the favour of people. “It is one of the major sources of government income. As the investors are in the ‘wait and see’ situation, the government should facilitate them with better environment,” he said.

The government collected Rs. 14 billion in revenue from the capital market.

Speaking at the programme, Finance Secretary Shishir Kumar Dhungana said that the revenue collection was improved in the last FY 2020/21 compared to the previous fiscal.

Meanwhile, revenue collection as well as government expenditure could not meet the annual target in the last fiscal year that ended on Thursday.

Revenue collection in the last FY was Rs. 938 billion which is 92.7 per cent of the annual target of Rs. 1011.7 billlion.

Likewise, total government expenditure stood at Rs. 1180.9 billion, 80 per cent of the total budget of Rs. 1474 billion.

Development expenditure was just 64.69 per cent of the total allocation of Rs. 352.9 billion. Similarly, 89.7 per cent recurrent budget was mobilised and 58.4 per cent financing was utilised. The total size of recurrent and financing budget was Rs. 948.9 billion and 172.7 billion.

Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 17 July 2021.