Dev expenditure, revenue collection miss targets
The government has once again failed to improve development expenditure and meet the revenue collection target though the budget for this fiscal year was presented on schedule.
The government has been sanctioned Rs 5 billion under the capital expenditure heading in the first four months of the current fiscal year against the annual target of Rs 72.61 billion, according to the Ministry of Finance.
Meanwhile, revenue collection fell short of the target with the growth rate reaching 17 percent against the target of 20 percent in the first four months. The Finance Ministry had targeted collecting Rs 65 billion in the first four months but took in only Rs 60 billion.
Despite a delayed presentation of the budget in the last fiscal year, capital expenditure was higher than in the first four months of this fiscal year. According to Nepal Rastra Bank figures which the Finance Ministry uses, capital expenditure amounted to Rs 5.51 billion in the first four months in the last fiscal year.
The status of capital expenditure was revealed following reports that some ministers had been blocking approval of the programmes by the National Planning Commission (NPC) by asking for kickbacks from the project chiefs.
Making a presentation on the state of the economy in the presence of Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai at the Finance Ministry on Thursday, Finance Secretary Krishna Hari Banskota asked the prime minister to call the ministers and secretaries to a meeting and direct the authorities concerned not to block the approval of programmes to expedite capital expenditure.
Expressing dismay over the poor status of development expenditure this year, Prime Minister Bhattarai said, “I want to see capital expenditure increased substantially.”
Despite political differences, the political parties had reached a consensus on presenting the budget for the current fiscal year on time due to the negative effects witnessed in the development field in previous years when the budget had been delayed. According to a progress report prepared by the National Planning Commission (NPC) on last year’s budget, only 70 percent of the capital expenditure was spent.
Despite poor expenditure of the capital budget, there has been substantial sanctioning of the budget in the recurrent one with Rs 60 billion already provided.
Regarding the shortfall in revenue collection, Finance Ministry officials said that it was due to repayment of loans by Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) and the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA).
Finance Secretary Banskota said that despite a 35 percent rise in value added tax collection and a 25 percent rise in customs, income tax and excise duty collection, revenue collection fell short of the target due to non-repayment of loans by these public enterprises.
According to the Finance Ministry, it has to get back loans worth Rs 10 billion from NOC and Rs 13 billion from the NEA.
Posted on: 2011-11-25 09:03
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