Finance Minister asserts: Budget prioritizes making Nepalis happy

Kathmandu / May 14: Finance Minister Dr Yuba Raj Khatiwada has said the budget has been made on the basis of the political and economic system that the country has adopted and the international relations.

He said so while responding to the questions the lawmakers had raised in course of discussions on the principles and priorities of the Appropriation Bill for the fiscal year 2076/77 in the today’s meeting of the House of Representatives.

The Finance Minister stressed that the size of the budget would be determined on the basis of the balance between the development aspirations and means and resources. “We need to stick to the budget discipline and standard. The cooperation from all sectors is required for this. The government is committed to implementing the fiscal federalism and inter-state balance would be maintained in the context of executing big infrastructure projects,” he said.

Stating that the budget would be formulated based on issues of achieving the objectives specified by the preamble and the directive principles of the state mentioned in the constitution, Finance Minister Khatiwada made it clear that the budget allocation would be made on the basis of policy, plan and action rather than on regional.

He said the questions related to the state principles, fundamental rights, press freedom and human rights would be adequately discussed in the parliament in course of making laws in the coming days, adding that the government was committed to implement the laws already legislated by parliament. “Rather than the sectoral basis, the priority (of the budget) is in the sector that will bring happiness in the faces of Nepalis. The present budget would not be bogged down in sectoral priority,” the Finance Minister said.

Both the geographical balance and population are important factors while making the budget allocation, and the criteria determined by the Natural Resources and Fiscal Commission would be taken as the main base while allocating the budget, he said, adding that the social security parameter would be expanded and the fiscal federalism would be executed through the policies and programmes as well as through the budget.

Minister Khatiwada also maintained that the budget has internalized the notion of sustainable development contributed to peace and equality, and that the budget would make an attempt to address topics of poverty, unemployment and good governance as well. He underlined that the budget will pay attention to motivating the private sector as well with the realization that it would be very challenging to implement the budget if the private sector’s support was not there notwithstanding the big size of the budget. In the meeting,

Speaker Krishna Bahadur Mahara said the issues raised and the suggestions proposed by lawmakers on the Appropriation Bill would be integrated and forwarded to the Ministry of Finance for its consideration. The House of Representatives will next meet at 11 am on May 20. RSS