Amid a boycott by opposition lawmakers, the Sudurpaschim government had hastily presented an incomplete budget of Rs 37.7 billion in Parliament to meet the legal deadline.
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The Sudurpaschim Provincial Government, which had a budget holiday for three months in the fiscal year 081/82 due to political wrangling, has once again made a 'serious mistake' in the budget for the upcoming fiscal year 083/84.
Amidst the boycott by opposition party MPs, Sudurpaschim Provincial Government's Minister for Economic Affairs Bikram Singh Dhami presented a budget of Rs 37.7 billion for the upcoming fiscal year 083/84 at midnight on Monday. Although the government had presented the budget in the provincial assembly at midnight, and that too in a hurry, to avoid violating the legal provision that the provincial government should present the budget on Asad 1, the Ministry of Economic Affairs was unable to reconcile the budget calculations, and brought an incomplete budget.
Sources said that the budget reconciliation work was being done secretly throughout the day on Tuesday. The budget statement booklet was made public only at 7 pm on Tuesday. This is the tenth budget brought by the Sudurpaschim government since the formation of the provincial structure. The government's failure to maintain budget discipline has brought to light many incongruous facts.
For the first time, Economic Affairs Minister Singh presented the budget in the provincial assembly when the opposition MPs' benches were empty. Not only that, but amid the internal wrangling within the ruling party over budget allocation, the budget statement presented by Minister Dhami did not mention the total figure for the budget of Rs 37.7 billion, except for the current, capital, ministry-specific and sectoral budget allocations. He made the statement by mentioning only the total budget and the source of the budget.
The budget statement booklet was not even provided to the MPs till Tuesday. It was customary for the Ministry of Economic Affairs to make it public as soon as the statement was read out in the provincial assembly. 'The statement booklet was not provided till 6 pm on Tuesday,' said NCP MP Om Bikram Bhat. Economic Affairs Minister Dhami and the Ministry's Secretary Rajendra Kumar Hamal could not be contacted. Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Economic Affairs Dhan Bahadur Rokaya says, ‘I don’t know why it wasn’t made public at that time.’
Similarly, after the presentation of the budget statement in the provincial assembly meeting, it is customary to register a written booklet of the budget statement, appropriation act, financial act, expenditure estimate and medium-term expenditure structure. But it is understood that the government has not even submitted it to the provincial assembly secretariat. Provincial assembly secretary Dev Bahadur Bogati says, ‘The government presented an incomplete budget to the assembly.’
According to an official involved in the budget project selection process, the budget schedules could not be prepared due to the budget calculations not being reconciled. The budget could not be presented with complete documents due to the tussle between the ruling party MPs for their respective shares in the budget project and pressure on the employees of the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Sources say that the employees were busy all day Tuesday after the budget presentation to reconcile the overall calculations, including the budget statement, which was presented without confirming the current and capital budgets.
According to a ruling party MP, the work of entering projects and amounts in the budget continued until 10:30 pm on Monday night. ‘At that time, the limit was exceeded, the calculations were not consistent, and the projects recommended by you had to be reduced, and they asked me to make adjustments,’ the MP said, ‘A minister said that the government is collapsing, please help. The budget is in disarray, the calculations are not consistent. They were making adjustments all day Tuesday to balance the calculations.’
He said that the ministers, including the budget preparation team of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, were working all day Tuesday in a secret location. ‘The Far Western government is causing financial chaos,’ said opposition party MP Bhat.
Experts say that Monday’s events have raised several questions. Why did the Ministry of Economic Affairs prepare an incomplete budget? How was it taken to the cabinet? How did the cabinet pass the incomplete budget? Why did the Minister of Economic Affairs dare to add only projects under political pressure without confirming the size of his pocket? What did the budget formulation committee of the Ministry of Economic Affairs look at? Many questions have arisen, including what it looked like.
‘It is a bigger mistake to change the budget that has already been presented in the assembly,’ said former Minister of Economic Affairs and MP Naresh Kumar Shahi.
Meanwhile, the NCP, which boycotted the budget statement, had sent a letter to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Speaker on Tuesday demanding the budget statement booklet. The party’s deputy leader Prakash Rawal said in a petition submitted to the provincial assembly that it had demanded the budget statement and related bills be made available.
The Sudurpaschim provincial government presented the budget at midnight amid a long tug-of-war between the ruling parties over budget allocation. The meeting was postponed to 9 pm after it could not be held as scheduled for 5 pm. However, the budget was pushed to midnight after the Council of Ministers could not even hold a meeting by 9 pm.
It was decided to increase the budget ceiling set by the Provincial Policy and Planning Commission due to the allocation. The commission had initially given a predetermined budget ceiling of Rs 24 billion. An official involved in the budget preparation said that Chief Minister Kamal Bahadur Shah was forced to increase the size after the share distribution was not enough as demanded by the ruling party UML and his own party's lawmakers. Due to pressure, the size of the budget was increased to the largest ever at Rs 37.7 billion. The main basis for the increase in size has been taken from the savings from the current budget. The government estimates that there will be more than Rs 9 billion in savings from the current budget.
A Congress lawmaker said that during the tug-of-war between the two parties since Sunday, the UML had threatened the Chief Minister to quit the government. After that, the Chief Minister was under more pressure. Meanwhile, UML lawmakers had also started talking about the UML preparing to quit the government. Many interpreted this talk as a bargaining strategy in the budget.
Due to the increase in the size of the budget and the inability to prepare the budget on time, the government had initially prepared to give Rs 50 million to the direct-party lawmakers and Rs 30 million to the proportional-party lawmakers for the coming year. But after the MPs refused, a lump sum budget of Rs 70 million was given to the direct-election MPs and Rs 50 million to the proportional representation MPs at the last minute. From that, the MPs were asked to recommend projects of their choice.
