Capital expenditure in 4 months less than 7%

Kathmandu, Nov. 18

Although there has been a slight improvement in the mobilisation of the development budget this year compared with that of the last year, the government could spend less than 7 per cent of the capital budget of Rs. 380.3 billion.

By the end of the first four months of the current fiscal year 2022/23, the size of expenditure has reached Rs. 26.29 billion, 6.91 per cent of the total, spent in the first four months of this year – by Wednesday, November 16, according to the statistics of the Financial Comptroller General Office (FCGO).

This is an improvement compared to the utilisation of the budget earmarked for development in the last fiscal when the government spent Rs. 20.79 billion – 5.5 per cent of the capital budget of Rs. 378.09 billion – in the first four months of the year.

Likewise, an added liability and expenditure of the elections for the House of Representative (HoR) and Provincial Assembly (PA) that are happening on Sunday have resulted in the increased mobilisation of recurrent budget as well. The government has spent a fund of Rs. 281.38 billion from the Rs. 1183.23 billion allocated for it. This is 23.78 per cent of the total allocation. Last year, the per cent of recurrent budget utilisation was almost the same with 21.92 per cent, amount size was Rs. 233.5 billion.

Altogether, total budget consumption by November 16 stands at 19.57 per cent of Rs. 1.79 trillion, indicating that the economy has failed to take any significant strides even in the post-pandemic scenario and expectation for the expedited development works.

Meanwhile, according to the Nepal Rastra Bank, total resource mobilisation of provincial governments remained Rs.34.30 billion in the first quarter of the fiscal.

The federal government transferred Rs.23.66 billion as grants and revenue from federal divisible fund to provincial governments and the provincial governments mobilised Rs.10.64 billion in terms of revenue and other receipts in the review period.

In the first three months, total expenditure of provincial governments stood at Rs.20.99 billion, states the Current Macroeconomic and Financial Situation report of the central bank.

Meanwhile, revenue collection has fared poorly with 19.11 per cent collection of Rs. 1403 billion annual targets. By the end of the fourth month, the government has collected Rs. 268 billion in tax and non-tax revenue, grants and other receipts. In the same period last year, the revenue collection stood at Rs. 334.3 billion which was 28.32 per cent of the annual target of Rs. 1180.6 billion.  

 Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 19 November 2022.