When a nation faces a scarcity of funds even to meet the general sector expenditure, we must believe, the nation cannot function and if tried to make it functional forcefully, an accident is obvious.
The negative impact on the global economy due to the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic and the prolonged war between Russia and Ukraine, skyrocketing inflation in European countries and cold relations between the USA and China, the world’s largest economies, are the indications that we are on the verge of a global recession.
The Nepali economy, solely based on imports, is facing different problems. A continuous hike in the price of petroleum products and essential goods including foods has hit the Nepali economy seriously. The government has banned imports of different items categorized as luxury goods following a decline in the foreign currency reserve and negative balance of payments.
In the past three months of the current fiscal year, the government is unable to collect revenue even to match the general sector expenditure. Within this period, the government has been able to collect only 228 billion rupees worth of revenue, whereas, it has already spent 393 billion rupees on the general sector expenditure. The government is already facing a deficit. The major amount has been spent on the general sector and the government has no funds for spending on the development sector. Now, it has no options except from borrowing internal debt for managing the deficit amount. The high-interest rate has already affected the industrial sector. The industrialists have already started agitation against the hike in the bank interest rate. Local industrialists are unable to run their industries by taking bank loans with the existing high-interest rate. It is thus believed that the nation is facing a serious economic crisis due to the domestic as well as international economic situation.
The reason behind the present worsening economic scenario is none other than the lack of financial management, however, the present scenario has not been developed overnight. In the name of economic liberalization, the governments formed after 1990 disposed of many government-owned industries. The remaining industries and other government undertakings giving profit to the nation and providing employment to thousands of youths were turned into a political recruitment center. Instead of appointing professional experts, the political parties in the government started to appoint party workers, from which, such business organizations have been economically ruined. Nepal, a country exporting agricultural products including food items turned into a country importing rice, paddy, vegetables and other agricultural products. The wrong handling of the economy gradually started to affect the country. Today, the country’s major foreign currency source has become the remittance revenue sent by Nepalis shedding sweat in Gulf countries. The nonsense political leaders are encouraging youths to go to foreign countries for risky and dirty jobs by providing “free visas and free tickets” for them. Those political leaders serving foreign powers cannot speak that the present political system is beyond the financial capability of Nepal. They are still saying that this is an offensive system. Indeed, a small group of political leaders is exploiting the nation’s coffer. Those leaders too know, the only solution is to scrap the present expensive political system and introduce a system based on rule of law. But they cannot exploit the government coffer if followed the rule of law properly. Therefore, they are together in daylight loot, unfortunately, they are less bothered about the country’s bleak future.
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