EDITORIAL
29 May was observed as the republic day and on the same day, as per the constitutional provision, the budget for new fiscal year 2079-80 was presented. Finance Minister Janardan Sharma presented budget worth Rs 1.79 trillion rupees amidst a critical economic environment where all the economic indicators have gone negative.
Forgetting the ground reality, the government has presented a populist, ambitious and distribution oriented budget to attract votes in the upcoming elections. Economic experts believe that the budget is not brought to implement it successfuly but to please and attract the voters.
It is a compulsion for the finance minister to hide the negative sides of the financial health of the nation and present a vibrant picture of the economy as he is presenting an election budget attracting the voters. No doubt, despite the negative scenario, the budget is highly distribution oriented by nature as the government has increased salary for the civil servicemen and also decided to provide allowance for the senior citizens crossing the age of 68.
The budget describes that the government is spending a large amount of revenue just to meet the general expenditure and there left very little amount for the capital investment or say the fund for infrastructural development. This is thus a negative budget.
The disease the nation is suffering is loktantra that we are practicing. We have 753 local bodies and seven provincial structures excluding the federal structure. The country’s domestic revenue is not enough to meet the expenditure for operating such a large number of provincial and local governments. The situation is that the government is taking foreign debt to function the present expensive mechanism under the loktantra.
The ground level scenario is different. It has already been 15 years since the absence of the institution of monarchy and 16 years of the introduction of “loktantra” but we are unable to see the enthusiasm among the people despite frustration against the political parties ruling the nation by developing a syndicate. Unfortunately, the supreme leaders of the political parties, instead of all-sided development of the nation, are aimed at looting the nation’s treasury through the politics of “bhagbanda” (sharing the government treasury among the leaders and political parties by developing political syndicate).
The present government alone is not responsible for the worst state of economy, but all the past governments formed since 1989 political change are responsible.
The loan burden of the country is continuously increasing and the government is taking loans from foreign countries and international institutions mainly to run the federal structure and to function the government. If such loans were taken for infrastructural development projects, and used transparently, in the 15 years, we could have already transformed the nation into an economically vibrant country. Unfortunately, foreign debts have also been exploited in a rampant manner. In other words, in the name of “loktantra”, we have introduced “loottantra”.
In fact, the present system based on federalism, secularism and republicanism has already failed and if we fail to review the backdrops of the present system, surely, Nepal is going to be declared a failed state sooner or later.
The disease has already been diagnosized, the only matter is that whether we are ready to remove the disease or keep the disease further!
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