‘Conditional grants to local levels indicate gaps in fiscal federalism’

KATHMANDU: National Natural Resources and Fiscal Commission has called for the identification of needs and justifiable distribution for public spending. During a meeting of the Finance Committee of the House of Representatives (HoR), Commission's Chairman Balananda Poudel argued for establishing a standard on the quality and quantity of the performance to be executed by the Federal, Province and Local Levels. "The province and local levels should be given the right to select the particular road projects to be constructed in a particular site despite the federal government’s selection of total roads to be constructed in a year across the country. Minimum standards of development should reach all local levels," Poudel said. Poudel was of the view that the conditional grants given to the local level should be reduced as per the recommendation of the Commission for the implementation of fiscal federalism. NNRFC has complained about the lack of cooperation from the government for the drafting of integrated law. President of Finance Committee of HoR, Krishna Prasad Dahal, commented that lack of laws for the NNRFC itself was unfortunate though it has the entire right to implement fiscal federalism. Dahal said the increased amount of conditional grants to the local levels indicate gaps in fiscal federalism. "It seems there lacks identification of economic resources, collection and utilisation in the local levels." Likewise, committee member Satya Pahadi pointed out the need for fiscal discipline and justifiable distribution of revenue. Another member of the committee, Padam Giri, said serious issues have been raised in regard to fiscal discipline as the local levels were spending resources from political interests and many expenses were taken place in unjustifiable topics. By RSS READ ALSO:

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