Govt draws flak for low capital expenditure

Rudra Pangeni 

Kathmandu, March 20

Lawmakers have criticized Chief Secretary and secretaries of the government for low progress in capital expenditure.

Only Rs 25 billion, or 21 percent, of the allocated Rs 116 billion earmarked for capital expenditure has been spend over the first eight months of the current fiscal year.

Speaking at the meeting of Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Thursday, lawmaker Usha Gurung expressed dissatisfaction at the government's failure to change the trend of making expenditure at the eleventh hour which often results to low quality works. "The government has unveiled plan to achieve 'developing country' status by 2022. But looking at the way we execute our development works, I don't think we will be able to achieve the goal," Gurung said.

Lawmaker Ramhari Khatiwada also said the government has failed to live up to its commitment of discouraging the trend of making expenditure at the eleventh hour. "This also applies to expenditure of budget allocated to parliamentary constituencies," he said, adding that authorization of budget has been sent only recently.

Responding to lawmakers' complaints, Chief Secretary Leela Mani Paudyal said he is not satisfied with the results. "I, however, am hopeful that spending will improve in the coming days. We hope to achieve 90 percent spending progress," he added.

Paudyal blamed structural problem, lengthy authorization processes, and lack of capacity of employees as the reasons behind slow spending.

Problems encountered in project development like low bidding and contractors fleeing with mobilization fee will be resolved in the new Public Procurement Act which will be tabled in the parliament soon, said Paudyal. "It, however, will not be justifiable to blame legal hurdles for low capital spending," he added.

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