Why people have low budget expectations

Nepal’s government presents its budget for the 2024-2025 financial year in Parliament on Tuesday amid a crisis in the cooperative sector, which is one of the country’s three economic pillars under the constitution.

Instead of the market-based economic policy that Nepal adopted after the People’s Movement in 1990, the constitution promulgated in 2015 adopted a three-pillar economic model, recognizing the role of the public, private and cooperative sectors in a mixed economic system.

The Constitution states that through the participation and development of the public, private and cooperative sectors, sustainable economic growth will be achieved with the maximum use of available funds and resources.

However, due to problems in cooperatives, which are one of the pillars of economic policy, victims have taken to the streets, while the main opposition party, the Nepali Congress, is obstructing the parliament in demanding the establishment of a commission of inquiry to investigate the deputy prime minister and the allegations of Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane regarding misappropriation of cooperative funds.

Taking into account the problems of cooperatives themselves, it is unlikely that the government will re-evaluate the three-pillar economic policy contained in the constitution, experts say. However, they also believe that the government should set a budget to deal with the problems faced by victims of cooperatives and the cooperative sector as a whole.

This is the second budget proposed by the Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led government after the November 2022 elections. The previous budget was passed by the Congress-CPN (Maoist Center) coalition government. The current budget will be adopted by the CPN (UML)-Maoist Center coalition government.

After the formation of the government under Dahal’s leadership, the country was rocked by a series of scandals, including those involving refugees from Bhutan, gold, cooperatives and the Giri Bandhu tea plantation. Amid this, public dissatisfaction with the country’s political trajectory is growing as the government is unable to rationally solve any problem and those responsible are released based on their political connections, experts say.

In these circumstances, public opinion has shown little enthusiasm for the upcoming budget.

Ram Manandhar, 49, a resident of Thamel in Kathmandu, says he is not particularly interested in the budget that will be presented on Tuesday.

“After every budget presentation, we see inflation in the market,” Manandhar, currently unemployed, told The Post. “I have no expectations for this budget other than that the same circumstances will not happen again this time.”

Due to the lack of sufficient opportunities at home, young people are increasingly immigrating to other countries. In light of their growing dissatisfaction, the government should have instilled hope in young people through various policies and programs, but this has not happened.

Gokul Ghimire, 25, from Malangwa in Sarlahi, is studying Japanese in Kathmandu and is looking forward to working abroad in Japan. In his opinion, since previous budgets were unable to meet the aspirations of the younger generation, he is pessimistic that something significant will happen this year.

“The budget can attract cadres of political parties and interest groups with political connections. Otherwise, people without political access rarely expect much from the budget,” Ghimire told The Post. “In a country where leaders compete with each other to consolidate and maintain power rather than formulate policy, there is little reason to be enthusiastic about the upcoming budget.”

Due to the rigidity of the ruling and opposition parties on the issue of setting up a parliamentary commission of inquiry against Home Minister Lamichhane, the work of the House of Representatives has been stalled for the last three months.

The ongoing political crisis, during which ruling and opposition parties are adamant about implementing their agendas in national politics, has further deepened young people’s reluctance, experts say.

They say that since the country is at the peak of social despair, the government should prepare a budget that takes into account the problems of the youth.

“Young people are frustrated with the constant political chaos in the country. At a time like this, the government should introduce a budget focused on youth and social welfare,” sociologist Meena Poudel told The Post.

While antipathy to politics is growing among young people, the government is presenting the budget without first discussing its policies and programs in parliament.

On Sunday, both houses of the federal parliament adopted the government’s policy and program for the next fiscal year in the face of protest from Congress. Even though Congress blocked the House of Representatives, Speaker Devraj Ghimire led a discussion on policies and programs that was later adopted by a majority of lawmakers.

According to experts, the implementation of the budget could pose challenges given that the policies and programs were adopted without discussion in parliament.

“If policies and programs were discussed in the House, the government and the opposition could express their views, which would give room to include some of the topics that need to be included in the budget,” economist Govinda Nepal told the Post. “In this context, it is not known how the government will implement the budget, which did not even take into account the opinion of the opposition.”