Kathmandu, December 17
The government’s underperformance in its spending capacity has been repeated in the new fiscal year also.
As five months of the current fiscal year have passed, the government spent only 6.46 per cent of the annual development budget so far, according to the government data.
The government had allocated Rs 439.65 billion for development works for this fiscal year. However, in the past five months, the government has only spent Rs 28.4 billion.
Whereas the government should have spent Rs 36 billion a month on average, the monthly average as of now stands at Rs 5.68 billion only.
Likewise, the government has spent 31.61 per cent of the annual recurrent budget in this period, informs the Financial Comptroller General Office.
Overall, the government has spent 23.7 per cent of the total budget allocation in this period.
Finance Minister Janardan Sharma says the government is not the sole responsible factor for understanding. Speaking at a function organised by the Federation of the Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Minister Sharma accepted the government’s weakness but added the government was holding discussions with stakeholders in its bid to search for a solution to this problem.
Meanwhile, Minister Sharma called all ministers to the Finance Ministry on Friday and told them to make sure that the figure of development budget spending reaches at least 30 per cent by mid-January 2022, the mid-point of the fiscal year.
