Kathmandu, November 5
Finance Minister Dr Swarnim Wagle has claimed that no one has been able to point fingers at the government’s performance over the past nearly eight months.
He said the government would continue working in the same manner for the next four and a half years and return with even greater strength in the next election.
“Even after nearly seven to eight months, no one has been able to point a finger at us. We will run the government in the same way for the next four and a half years and return as an even stronger force,” Minister Wagle said at a programme organised to discuss the Nepal Infrastructure Summit.
He claimed that all government agencies were working in coordination.
“No government has completed a five-year term since the time of Juddha Shumsher. We will break that trend,” Wagle said, adding that the government would clean up corruption.
According to him, while 35 laws were enacted over the past three and a half years, the current government is working on 166 laws. Of these, 59 laws are being prepared to be advanced together as a single package.
“We are preparing for a big bang. The pace of work will now accelerate,” he said.
Wagle said the government had prioritised large-scale investment and faster implementation in infrastructure development. He added that preparations were underway to advance eight to 10 major infrastructure projects simultaneously.
He also said the government had adopted a policy of increasing private sector participation to end the situation in which the state alone was responsible for carrying out all development works. According to him, the budget was introduced to create more opportunities for private investment, while provisions related to alternative development financing would also be implemented.
“We will increase private capital,” he said. Finance Minister Wagle also claimed that the government’s efforts to promote good governance had had a positive impact on the economy. Despite the country facing major floods and landslides, he said revenue collection had maintained a healthy pace, describing this as a dividend of good governance.
He said the government would pursue good governance, legal reforms, infrastructure development and increased private sector investment simultaneously.
