Kathmandu, May 29
The main opposition Nepali Congress has concluded that the KP Sharma Oli-led ruling coalition brought a budget by violating fiscal discipline. Implementing the budget for the fiscal 2073-74 will be impossible, the party said, describing the budget as imaginative.
This view came to the fore at the joint meeting of the NC Parliamentary Party and the NC Central Working Committee, held to review the budget. Talking to the media after the meeting, Congress leader Prakash Sharan Mahat said: It’s a huge budget. The government will find it difficult to implement it for want of resources.
At the meeting, NC leader Bimalendra Nidhi said the party should demand Finance Minister Bishnu Poudel’s resignation.
He maintained that Finance Minister Poudel should resign as information about the size of the budget and priorities were publicised through the media before budget presentation.
The Congress concluded that implementing the budget will be impossible without increasing the capacity to spend.
Congress whip Ishwori Neupane told Onlinekhabar: Some of the speakers sought Finance Minister Poudel’s resignation at the meeting. But this issue is under discussion, we have not taken a decision on the matter as yet.
At the meeting, leaders Nidhi, Ram Sharan Mahat, Mahesh Acharya, Minendra Rijal, Prakash Sharan Mahat and Bharat Bahadur Khadka, among others, said this budget will increase inflation and harm the national economy.
A raise for government employees and the decision to hike lawmakers’ housing allowances are good, but they too will cause market prices to spiral up, they said.
They said: The budget has no programme to control inflation, it has no plan to boost productivity. This budget is election-oriented and aimed at earning cheap popularity.
What do you think of this budget? You think the government aims to earn cheap popularity through it? Feel free to comment.
