Claiming that no unauthorized changes were made to the bill after it was registered in Parliament, he called the controversy an attempt to bring a 'storm in a teacup'.
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Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle has clarified that the amendments made to the economic bill were not made with any malicious intent but to correct technical errors and in the public interest.
In the Finance Committee meeting held at Singha Durbar on Wednesday, he said that unnecessary confusion had been created regarding some errors made during the budget preparation. He said that although it is not a tradition to generally amend the economic bill presented in Parliament, important issues can be corrected based on necessity and justification.
Clarifying the dispute regarding customs rates, Wagle said, "Previously, 'carrier' bags carrying vaccines and blood were classified as suitcases and plastic boxes and were subject to 30 percent customs duty. While reducing the customs duty on health supplies to 15 percent on humanitarian grounds, the customs duty on suitcases also reached 15 percent due to technical reasons. To correct the same error, the previous 30 percent customs duty has been restored on suitcases."
Stating that the government has a policy that the price of vehicles worth less than Rs 5 million should not increase, he informed that the missing provision regarding road construction fees has been included through the amendment.
Similarly, he said that it has been clarified that the value-added tax (VAT) imposed on electricity tariffs will be applicable only to the end consumer and will not be applied to transactions between producers and entities. He said that the provision for tax deduction for children's education and income tax exemption for cinema halls and theaters operating in areas other than metropolitan and sub-metropolitan areas has also been omitted, so it has been included through the amendment.
Wagle noted that the Parliament Secretariat had been formally informed about the amendment on Jestha 17 itself, and commented that the reforms made for the public interest have been unnecessarily controversial.
Clarification on the 'missing 16 pages' controversy
Finance Minister Wagle also rejected the allegations that pages of the economic bill had been disappeared and customs rates had been changed. He claimed that the news in the media had created confusion and that no changes had been made to the content of the bill.
He said, 'Only some of the rates corrected by the CPN-UML and Nepali Congress governments last year have been clarified this time. Only minor changes have been made to the customs rates of carriers carrying blood and vaccines, which is a purely humanitarian and technical issue.'
Linking the issue of increasing or decreasing the number of pages to the technical aspect, he added, 'If the column is stretched by just 1 millimeter in a 457-page document, the number of pages can increase to 500 or decrease if it is reduced. Not a single dot, comma or full stop has been changed in the content.'
Claiming that no unauthorized changes were made to the bill after it was registered in Parliament, he termed the controversy as an attempt to bring 'a storm in a teacup'.
