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Full-fledged budget not possible, says Finance Secretary

As the political deadlock has continued, the government officials have said they are unable to bring a full-fledged budget this year.

Normally, a budget for the new fiscal year is presented at the parliament in the first/second week of July.

“Budget is presented after the government presents its policies and programmes. Presenting policies and programmes is not possible because there is no head of state now. So, full-fledged budget is not possible this year,” said Finance Secretary Rameshwore Khanal.

He added that the government is preparing to introduce advance expense bill for the time being.

However, even for that bill to be approved – which would, in turn, allow the government to continue collecting revenue and spending resources – the Constituent Assembly (CA) meeting has to resume as it also functions as legislature.

“There are still few days left. We hope the deadlock will break,” Khanal said, adding that introducing ordinance is also out of question since the government cannot issue ordinance when parliamentary session is on.

“At present, we cannot issue ordinance. It can be issued only when the CA session is off. Either the current session has to be temporarily suspended,” he said. nepalnews.com sd Jul 07 08