Bhutan is supposed to have entered the 12th Five Year Plan period on July 1 last year. But the 12th plan start date was moved to November 1 to align the plan period with the government’s tenure.
As a reuslt, the 12th Five Year Plan period is now from 1 November, 2018 to 31 October, 2023.
All five year plans till date began in July in line with the fiscal year dates.
At the Friday Meet last week, the works and human settlement minister, Dorji Tshering, said the elections have created a gap in the government taking office and planned commencement of the five year plan.
“The five year plan dates and the election dates do not go in tandem. For example, this five year plan began in July 2018 but the government took office in November.We were delayed by over five months,” Minister Dorji Tshering said.
“If we keep it like this, the next government will get a seven-month gap. As we go further, it will get increased to 10 months and so on. One day, we might end up with two governments working on one plan.”
The fiscal year dates have not been changed though. The first fiscal year of the 12th FYP began last July and ends next June as usual.
The budget for the first fiscal year has already been approved by the cabinet. At Friday Meet, it was confirmed the recent cabinet meeting approved a budget of Nu 47bn.
This is an increase of Nu 3.3bn from the interim budget approved by the last parliament.
The budget, which is subject to approval from the parliament, has maintained the current expenditure at Nu 29bn, while the capital expenditure has been increased to Nu 18bn from Nu 10.7bn approved in the interim budget.
