Kathmandu, August 20
The Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives has directed the government to introduce policy and institutional reforms to ensure foreign aid is mobilised in line with the principle of results-oriented spending.
A meeting of the committee held at Singha Durbar on Thursday directed the government to ensure that foreign aid in the coming days is aligned with national priorities, the budget system, public funds, transparency, auditing and results-based spending.
The committee also directed the government to bring all forms of foreign aid— whether cash, in-kind or technical — into the national budget system and government treasury as far as possible and subject them to mandatory auditing.
Committee Chair Bharat Bahadur Khadka said the Ministry of Finance had been instructed to include and allocate foreign-funded resources in the annual budget only after the availability of the assistance had been confirmed.
The ministry was also directed to ensure timely reimbursement of expenses made through foreign aid to minimise the additional financial burden on the government’s domestic resources caused by delays.
The committee called for an integrated record of foreign aid commitments, actual receipts, expenditure, utilisation and reimbursements, with mandatory updates in the relevant government systems.
It also directed the government to strengthen management, monitoring and implementation capacity so that projects funded through foreign aid are completed within their stipulated time and cost.
Speaking at the meeting, Finance Minister Dr Swarnim Wagle said the ministry was closely monitoring the global economic situation, the effectiveness of foreign aid and new financial strategies Nepal should adopt.
Wagle said donor countries were increasingly imposing stricter conditions on aid or seeking to spend the funds through their own mechanisms to prevent misuse of taxpayers’ money.
Traditional sources of foreign aid, he said, were no longer sufficient or effective, prompting Nepal to explore alternative sources of financing.
The finance minister said alternative financing sources had already been given policy priority in the national budget and that the government was working to manage the transitional period while adapting to the changing global economic order.
