Budget in limbo

The Himalayan Times

8 March 2018

Budget in limbo

Nepal has now entered into the federal structure after the completion of three tiers of elections. This situation demands several changes in the bureaucratic and financial management systems that were in place for several decades. Among them, the assignment of existing human resources to the three levels of government, appropriation of annual budget and identification of development programmes and projects to be implemented by the federal, provincial and local level governments have been herculean task for the federal government.

The traditional practice of fiscal budget formulation and presentation to the Parliament by the central government was normally done towards the end of June of every fiscal year. In the absence of local level governments for the last almost 20 years, the Districts Development Committees (DDC) used to be a focal point for incorporating all the district level sectoral programmes and forward them to the respective central level ministries which used to compile and forward them to the National Planning Commission (NPC) and Ministry of Finance (MoF) for finalization. 

Most federal ministries seem to have delayed in handing over their programmes to their respective provincial and local level governments. Unless these handing over processes are done, the chances of duplication of district level and federal level programmes thus swelling the volume of annual budget will remain very high. Also, the annual budget ceiling to be provided by the NPC to each federal ministries is yet to take place due to delay in appointment of new NPC vice chair.

Rai Biren Bangdel

Maharajgunj