Local bodies lack capacity, resources

Kathmandu, Mar. 26

Many roads and bridge projects handed over to the States and local levels  by the Federal Government are stranded as the sub-national units lack sufficient budget and human resources to implement them.

The Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport (MoPIT) is facing hard times to bring those projects back in order to create infrastructure facilities across the coutnry.

"The Appropriation Bill for the Fiscal Year 2018/19 had handed over multi-year projects and other medium-level infrastruture projects to the respective States and local levels. But due to the lack of expertise and budget priority, only a very few sub-national governments show readiness to take them further," said the MoPIT.

Speaking at the meeting of the Development and Technology Committee (DTC) of the Parliament on Tuesday, lawmakers pointed to the gap in coordination among the three levels of governmetn and criticised the central government for its indifference towards enabling the local government with required capacity and resources to execute infrastructure projects.

They said that pulling the projects back to the central government would weaken the local bodies as well as the concept of federalism.

The National Planning Commission and the concerned ministries must work to provide budge and technical expertise to the local governments, demanded lawmaker Ganesh Pahadi.

According to the MoPIT, the local bodies are not ready to accept the ownership of the projects transferred to them by the central government.

The Committee directed the federal government to send budget and technical manpower to the projects transferred to the local bodies.

However, it asked the government to implement the multi-year road and bridge projects, transferred to the sub-national governmetns, by itself. As per the Appropriation Bill, concerned governmetn agencies can implement the projects sent to the local governments with the approval of the concerned line ministries.

But the process to get the project back to central agencies is cumbersome – first the State government has to wirte to the concerned federal ministry about sending the project back, then the ministry has to receive a consent from the Ministry of Finance (MoF) for the fund transfer, and again has to obtain approval from the Cabinet.

The DTC pointed towards a greater inter-ministrial and inter-governmental coordination and directed the Office of the Prime Minister, MoF and MoPIT for the same.

Minister for Finance Dr. Yuba Raj Khatiwada assured that the the strategic projects would be given priority and would be supported with additonal budget if required. He urged the committee to direct the government to conclude the incomplete projects by the next fiscal year.

Minister for Physical Infrastructure and Transport Raghubir Mahaseth said that there was about 80 per cent physical progress at the national pride projects. He assured that the projects that are beyond the capacity of the local governments would be brought to the domain of the federal ministry and be completed in time.

Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 27 March 2019.