In a bid to speed up development spending, Ministry of Finance (MoF) has asked all government ministries to get their development programs approved, and delegate the task of implementation to the concerned agencies by August 10.
Likewise, it has instructed all agencies executing the development programs to complete the necessary bidding process by the end of mid-November so that development works could be implemented smoothly over the remaining months of the fiscal year.
The ministry took such aggressive approach mainly because the development spending remained pretty low in the previous fiscal years. Besides, the new budget has raised capital expenditure by almost 14 percent to about Rs 149 billion.
“Lack of timely budget has already robbed from us the crucial developmental opportunities for the last three fiscal years. But as we have the budget on time, we want to be sure it is optimally utilized,” said Finance Secretary Krishna Hari Baskota.
Even though the parliament is yet to hold discussions on the appropriation bill and endorse the budget, MoF has already delegated spending authority to all the government ministries and local bodies.
It has asked them to get their programs approved from National Planning Commission within the second week of August and complete tender process by the end of the fourth month of the fiscal year.
“Basically, we wish the concerned authorities complete all basic procedures soon so that development works could be carried out smoothly over the remaining eight months,” said Baskota.
As a big chunk of the capital budget has been allocated for programs that are already into implementation, officials are hopeful that government will manage to spend the budget this year.
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