Finance Minister Janardan Sharma has refuted allegations that unauthorized persons prepared the budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
CPN-UML lawmakers have been demanding his resignation alleging that outsiders corrected the tax rates in the budget in the eleventh hour. Speaking in the House of Representatives (HoR) on Tuesday, Sharma has assured that responsible officials led by secretaries have prepared the budget.
“All works have been done in an authorized manner. I want to make it clear that I have prepared the budget being accountable to the responsibility in capacity of a finance minister. I want to clarify that the allegations about unauthorized persons preparing the budget are false and misleading,” Sharma has claimed.
Pointing that teams led by finance and revenue secretaries are mobilized for preparing the budget, he has stated that he only has rights to provide government’s policies and vision in capacity of a finance minister on the budget prepared by them, and work has been done accordingly.
“I stand here to clarify about the questions raised by lawmakers about news in some media regarding the issue of budget preparation... The issue that has been raised in the context of some individual coming in the midnight to manipulate tax rates while preparing the budget, that is extremely misleading, imaginary and a false story has been created. I want to refute that, revoke that.”
Pointing that revenue secretary makes necessary preparations regarding revenue mobilization and finance secretary about financial mobilization, he has also stressed that finance minister does not have any rights to play on that.
