By Our Reporter
Latest economic indicators and government failure to allocate the required budget for development activities and ever-increasing general expenditure have raised a question whether the country is moving towards becoming a failed state.
Every year, around 80 per cent amount of the annual budget is spent for general expenditure—to pay salaries and allowances to the political employees and civil servants, and only 20 per cent budget is left for development expenditure. Now when the government has announced elections, general expenditure will sure to increase further, thereby further reducing the development budget.
As a result, the government has been issuing public bonds to run development projects. The situation is such that the government is unable to announce relief fund to rescue the COVID-19 hit economy. Moreover, the government has not paid the extra allowance announced to give the health workers, security personnel and others who worked in the frontline during lockdown holidays.
The government has been unable to spend even the limited development budget.
The latest data of the Nepal Rastra Bank showed that the government had spent 28.76 per cent of the Rs. 1532.96 billion in the first seven and a half months of the current fiscal year. Expenditure during the same period last year was 31.77 per cent of Rs. 1274.64 billion.
Capital expenditure has remained sluggish with just 16.41 per cent. This figure is enough to show how development activities are staggering in Nepal. The only positive indicator is an increase in revenue collection this fiscal.
Surpassing the rate of the previous year, government revenue collection has reached 45.34 per cent in the seven and a half months of the current fiscal year. It was 41.39 per cent during the same period last year.
Although the revenue collection during the same period in the last fiscal year was 41.39 per cent, the total revenue target was higher than that of the current year, amounting to Rs. 1112.03 billion.
It means the government this year has comparatively a comfortable target in terms of revenue collection.
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