Govt will protect the deprived: Pandey

Kathmandu, June 2:

Former Finance Minister Surendra Pandey on Sunday said that the government would protect the deprived and marginalised communities with social security measures and livelihood opportunities.

"The government is trying to make some efforts towards creating an equitable society where every individual will have a dignified life," he said while speaking at the Gorkhapatra Sambad, a weekly dialogue organised by the Gorkhapatra Corporation.

However, he said that the government would create an equitable society through different measures such high taxes to the rich and welfare to the poor.

The budget has allocated Rs. 64 billion for senior citizens, single women, disabled, marginalised communities like Raute, a total of 2.2 million people.

"In total Rs. 100 billion is set aside to fulfil the social security requirement. This is huge money since it covers almost 10 per cent of our total revenue. Even the richest countries do not allocate budget of that size for social security," said Pandey.

He defended the size of the budget and said that if he were the finance minister, he would have gone up to Rs. 1.9 trillion.

According to him, the country has external loan of 15.5 per cent of the GDP and internal loan of 13 per cent which creates a sizable fiscal space.

"The government must not afraid of obtaining loans but should be worried about the proper utilisation of the borrowed money. Large economies the United States of America and Japan have loan more than 100 per cent of their GDP," he said.

Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 3 June 2019.