Revise Foreign Aid Policy into Foreign Aid Act, House committee tells govt
Kathmandu, Jan 25: The International Relations and Labour Committee under the Legislature-Parliament has directed the government to revise the Foreign Aid Policy-2071 BS into an Act.
The meeting also directed the government for the effective implementation of the system of spending foreign assistance provided by donor agencies through the government, and to only accept foreign aid on big-projects rather than small ones and to establish a regular monitoring and evaluation system of the projects run through foreign aid.A total of Rs 28.21 million has been mobilized in the current fiscal year. On the occasion, Committee members stressed strong and effective implementation of the policy of spending the foreign aid through the one-door system.
They also suggested to end the trend of budget freezing as the current fiscal year has been declared as budget implementation year and to increase the capacity of the government to spend the budget.
Committee members Bharat Khadka, Lalbabu Yadav, Rajan Bhattarai, Lalita Regmi, Prema Lama, Amar Sharma, Ram Chandra Sah and Ashok Kumar Mandal said that the government should show its activeness to spend the budget as seen in receiving foreign aid.
State Minister for Local Development Kunti Sahi informed that over 7.16 billion has been allocated for different 23 projects under the Ministry.
She added that the review meeting would be held with foreign donors to evaluate the progress in this regard. State Minister further assured of making the foreign aid transparent.
Joint secretary at the Local Development Ministry Purna Chandra Bhattarai informed that the foreign aid was mobilized as per the concept of one district one national programme.
Similarly, joint secretary at the Ministry of Finnace Bainkutha Aryal informed that the ministry was working for bringing the act related to budget management and making it accountable.