FM paints bleak picture on nation

Himalayan News Service

KATHMANDU: Finance Minister (FM) Surendra Pandey on Thursday painted a bleak picture of the country's financial health, and implored the main opposition Unified-CPN-Maoist to pass the budget within a day.

Speaking at a parliamentary committee meeting, the minister said that there was a dire need to pass the budget in the House at the earliest. "The government is the country's biggest financial entrepreneur with a transaction of over Rs 300 billion. The entire fiscal discipline will be destablised, and the private sector will be severely affected if there is further delay," he warned.

The minister said that one-third of the budget, authorised by the vote-on-account, was almost depleted, and the liquidity crunch was already denting the banking and private sectors. The Business Advisory Committee meeting of Legislature-Parliament was called by Speaker Subas Chandra Nembang, who urged all the parties to bury their hatchet and pass the budget. However, Posta Bahadur Bogati, chief whip, UCPN-M, said that the ruling parties were only blaming the Maoists for the crisis.

"Our agitation was launched much before the budget was tabled,” claimed Bogati. He suggested that the passing of the budget could be put on hold for a few more days till the resolution of the impasse.

Three-party meet to be held today

KATHMANDU: The much-awaited top-level meeting of the three major parties was postponed till Friday after the three-member taskforce of the UCPN-Maoist, NC and CPN-UML failed to make headway on the proposed consensual sanakalpa prastav.

Maoist leader Dev Prasad Gurung, NC's Arjun Narsingh KC and UML's Yuvraj Gyawali were entrusted with finalising the proposed sankalpa prastav by Thursday morning. The meeting was slated for Thursday

afternoon.

NC leader Krishna Prasad Sitaula, who replaced KC in taskforce-level meeting on Thursday, told mediapersons that they were yet to reach a consensus on the content and language of the proposed sanakalpa prastav.

The Maoists want to mention, even obliquely, about the President's 'unconstitutional move' to overturn the Prachanda-led government's order to sack the then Chief of Army Staff Rookmangud Katawal. Both the NC and UML are opposed to the Maoists' proposal.