KATHMANDU: The meeting of the House of Representatives (HoR) has been postponed till 11:00 am Wednesday due to the obstruction by CPN (UML) parliamentarians.
The parliamentarians from the major opposition party demanded a parliamentary probe into the involvement of unauthorized person during the budget making process for the upcoming fiscal year 2022/23.
Speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota announced that the HoR would meet again at 11:00 am on Wednesday after the parliamentarians stood up from their respective seats in a gesture of protest while deliberation on the Appropriation Bill for the upcoming fiscal year was ongoing at House.
Earlier, Minister for Finance Janardan Sharma had responded to the the matters of public concerns. He was claiming that no unathorised persons were involved in the budget making process.
CPN UML Whip Bishal Bhattarai then said that Finance Minister’s responses were not convincing and asserted that the parliament would not hold meeting until a parliamentary probe was conducted.
The lawmakers from CPN-UML have criticized Finance Minister Janardan Sharma for his alleged role in the manipulation of tax rates in the budget at the eleventh hour.
Recent media reports accuse the Finance Minister of altering tax rates before the announcement of the budget for the fiscal year 2079-80 BS on May 29.
Once a meeting of the House of Representatives convened today, UML vice chair and lawmaker Surendra Pandey sought time and drew the government’s attention to media reports accusing the Finance Minister of manipulating tax rates in collusion with unauthorized people before presenting it to the parliament. As he stressed, the Finance Minister should resign from the post on a moral ground.
“After facing a serious charge, the Finance minister is expected to clarify about it in the House. Even lawmakers of ruling parties have questioned his role in the alteration of tax rates and even after all these, does he still expect to hold the post,” he questioned.
When the provisions require even the ministers and secretaries to put their communication devices in lockers during the discussions on tax rates in course of preparing the budget before it is presented in parliament, the Finance Minister had been accused of violating the norms by tweaking the tax rate in collusion with the unauthorized persons he brought with him, he said.
