Rameshwar Khanal also became a minister in the newly formed government led by Sushila Karki on Monday. He has been given the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance. Here is a conversation with him:

What is your priority right now ? 

is now the priority of the nation rather than just me, the Ministry of Finance. The priority of the nation is now decided by the youth. An important priority of the youth is that there should be zero corruption in the country. In addition to government service, their demand is that the citizens should be treated as citizens and served with respect and dignity. Fulfilling that demand and establishing their agenda in the current governance system is the first priority now.

Secondly, this government is built according to the constitution to complete the elections within 6 months and hand over the duties to the elected government. It is the priority of the Ministry of Finance that there should be no shortage of resources for the completion of that election. And, my priority is also . Elections are not only based on financial resources. There are things like security, that is looked at by other ministries .

Thirdly, the morale of the private sector has been hit repeatedly for various reasons. Before this, there was a shock due to earthquake and blockade. Soon after, Covid-19 struck. Then we were struck by our own internal sluggishness . Now it was under improvement . At this time, the private sector has also suffered a great loss. Government public property has been damaged. How much damage has been done, by immediately assessing it, at least the country should be healed in a period of 5/6 months and the country should wake up from the ashes, now we have risen.

Compared to these three priorities, the youth lost his life while raising his voice against the corruption, misrule, misconduct, injustice and various distortions in the country. It is important to adequately support and support their families and respect them. 

He said zero tolerance and corruption should be controlled while giving instructions to the employees and he said that resources should be raised for the elections by canceling the projects that have not been shown to be profitable. Can you clarify this?

When the budget came, four/five days after that, it was reported in the media that billions of budgets were being spent on unprepared, fragmented, useless projects based on political demands . It was also discussed at that time that there are such projects worth 30/40 billion. What is the real description is known after talking internally . A working group has been formed after deciding that the money left over can be used for the purpose of elections or for the reconstruction of any damaged property. 

He was also the coordinator of the high-level improvement suggestion commission. Coincidentally, now he is also the Minister of Finance . How do you implement your own suggestions?

would naturally execute that sequence . It is not implemented by one decision at a time . Acts had to be changed . When there was no parliament, there was no talk of doing it through an ordinance. It is very important, it should not be done, morality cannot be maintained, corruption cannot be stopped, people who have done wrong cannot be punished, it should be done by ordinance. The suggestions included changing the long-term nature of the laws. For this, the next government will have to wait. We will certainly do what this government does.

Now there is a big loss in the hotel business, which has caused the morale of the businessmen to drop, how can the morale be improved by raising the morale in such a situation?

happens through some market systems. I have also spoken to the Governor of Nepal Rastra Bank about this. Some may be from the financial system, some may be from the insurance system, or some may be done by the government. To assess this, we are going to propose a study in the Cabinet. 

From reconstruction to government spending, how will the work proceed ? 

Now the ministry has said that there is no shortage of resources for this. I can look at the data myself. In the coming days, the government will not be able to do some things, it will not be possible to pay. It may be that the institutional system that was there for those days was broken . In this regard, the IT system is not broken . Some files may be damaged. As a result, in order to make some decisions, it may be necessary to search for documents in the file or to search for evidence. Apart from that, there is no problem.