E-Kantipur

KATHMANDU, NOV 25 - The Parliament session passed the budget for the current fiscal year with overwhelming majority on Wednesday, ending the crunch of fund faced by the government to carry out regular expenditures due to delay over passing the budget.

The House session of Wednesday not attended by majority of opposition lawmakers unanimously passed the financial bill, the bill on national debt recovery and the bill on debt and collateral (seventeenth amendment) and ended the five month long stalemate over the passage of budget. At the very beginning of the session, Finance Minister Surendra Pandey tabled the proposal for passing those bills. Speaker Subash Nambang announced the bills were unanimously passed after all the lawmakers present in the meeting including two from the UCPN (Maoist) didn't registered their objection while the bills were presented for decision.

After the passage of the budget, the Speaker scheduled the next meeting of parliament on Friday morning. Nembang put signatures on the budget bills passed by the House and forwarded to President Dr. Ram Baran Yadav clearing the deck for the government to implement its budget worth Rs. 285.93 billion.

Earlier, the Tuesday's session of Parliament had passed the appropriation bill from simple majority as two lawmakers of UCPN (Maoist) attending the meeting opposed it. The House had resumed on Monday for the purpose of passing the budget after the Maoist lifted their parliament blockade for three days. The Maoist made their "symbolic participation" in the budget discussion on the Parliament.

The smooth functioning of the next House session is still uncertain as the ruling and opposition parties are yet to forge consensus on the joint resolution to address the Maoist demand of civilian supremacy and correction of President's move to reinstate the then Army chief Rookmangud Katawal.

Meanwhile, Speaker Nembang on Wednesday urged the parties to move forward and forge consensus for ending the deadlock in the parliament. "I want to thank all the parties for cooperating in endorsing the budget from the parliament," he told reporters at his office. "There are still many pending agendas like passing of bill related to the implementation of republic and amendment of constitution to address the oath row of the vice president, so I request parties to forge consensus to allow the parliament function smoothly." Nembang also stressed the immediate need of formation of high level political mechanism to establish cordial relationship among parties, draft the new constitution within the stipulated time and take the peace process to its logical end.

Posted on: 2009-11-25 09:24

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