Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Cabinet directs Finance Ministry to prepare budget

The Cabinet today directed the Finance Ministry to prepare for the full-fledged budget for the fiscal year 2010-11.
However, the ministry has already been preparing for the full-fledged budget for the fiscal year due to no head-way in the political dead-lock and new government formation.
"The present care-taker government is going to bring the full-fledged budget -- though its three months delayed -- despite UCPN-Maoists' disagreement with the move," spokesperson of the care-taker government and minister for Information and Communication Shanker Pokhrel said at the Reporters' Club here today.
"The care-taker government will go ahead with its budget plan and won't bow before the UCPN-Maoists pressure," he said, adding that the country cannot remain budget-less for a long time.
But the UCPN-Maoist has been pressuring the political parties on new government formation before the budget, claiming that the care-taker government has no moral and political right to bring full-fledged budget.
"The care-taker government has no political and moral authority to bring the full-fledged budget," said UCPN-Maoist vice-chairman Dr Baburam Bhattarai speaking at Geta Airport in Dhangadi today.
The Maoists have been pushing for political consensus and formation of new government to bring the full-fledged budget.
"Care-taker government cannot bring a full-fledged budget anywhere in the world," Bhattarai said, adding, "If it brings the full-fledged budget, UCPN-Maoists will not support."
The meeting of office-bearers of UCPN-Maoists here today also strongly opposed the government move to bring budget. "The political parties, instead, have to expidite the government formation process," said another vice-chairman of the UCPN-Maoists Narayankaji Shrestha, after the meeting at the residence of Maoist supremo Puspa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda'.
However, the government is not leaving any stone unturned to bring the budget as it has already been three months delayed. "The government also has a majority to pass the budget," Pokhrel added.
Meanwhile, minister for Tourism and Civil Aviation Sarat Singh Bhandari said that the Nepal Tourism Year 2011 (NTY 2011) programmes have been hit due to delayed budget. "The NTY 2011 promotional activities are hit hard," he told talking to the journalists in Biratnagar.
He also claimed that the government still has the majority in the parliament to pass the budget despite it being a care-taker one. "The government still enjoys majority as any of its coalition partners have not yet pulled out of the alliance," he said.
Due to resignation of incumbent Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal in June, the government brought a Special Budget of Rs 110.21 billion for the regular expenses, under the special provision. But the budget is not enough to propel development activities and the private sector is still waiting for the full-fledged budget that might bring some hope and create conducive investment climate for them.
Without the government expenditure, the private sector is reluctant to invest fearing the policy change in the full-fledged budget in absence of which the growth is going to suffer.
The economic growth rate (real GDP) in the last fiscal year 2009-10 is estimated to be 3.5 per cent – lower than four per cent achieved a fiscal year ago. But delay in the budget for this fiscal year will hit the gowth for the current fiscal year too.
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the growth rate for the current fiscal year is expected to be three per cent which might go up to four per cent in the next fiscal year.

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