Kathmandu, June 3: Member of the House of Representatives (HoR) and former Finance Minister, Dr Prakash Sharan Mahat, has stressed on the need of increasing financial investment in the productive sector.
Taking part in the deliberations on the annual estimations of revenues and expenditures for the fiscal year 2024-25 in the lower house of the Federal Parliament, he said the nation’s economic growth would be impeded in case of failure to increase investment in the productive sectors.
“The production and employment cannot be increased and neither does the revenue for failing to spend in the productive sectors by taking loans. The consequence of this is that the debt burden on the state increases, leading to a situation wherein more loans have to be taken for paying the loans,” he said.
Lawmaker Mahat expressed his objections to the budget, saying that the budgetary appropriations for the next fiscal year in it were ‘scattered’. He argued that the budget should be pro-people than party-oriented and the apportioned budget should be spend on the basis of prioritization.
As he said, although the size of the budget has increased, the country’s economic development cannot be achieved if it is not spent in a systematic manner. “The revenue has not been generated as the financial resources are not spent in the productive sectors and it has also not created jobs. The budget allocations for the next fiscal year have not been prioritized and it has not been apportioned on the basis of need,” he said.
Saying the budget allocation to the Ministry of Industry and Supplies is inadequate, he criticized the budget for the budgetary allocations have been made in such a way that they will be spent in unproductive sectors than in the productive ones.
The former Finance Minister stressed on being sensitive on the topic of mobilization and spending of financial resources. “The budget for the upcoming fiscal year has not been able to navigate a concrete direction. We have raised a decent amount of revenue, but there is no outcome. Investment has been made, we have been collecting taxes, but the production has not increased. It is necessary to find out solution to these problems,” he pointed out.
Noting that the State’s foreign debt has been going up and although the debt burden of loans taken by the private sector is accumulating, the expected revenue is not generated due to this, which has led to a decline in the economy.
Lawmaker Mahat said the cooperative depositors were facing problem in recent days due to the cooperative fraud and demanded taking stern legal action against individuals who spent the cooperatives savings in contravention of the cooperatives laws. #nepal #budget
