The Joint Sitting of the Parliament, today, raised their concerns regarding high public debt, underutilisation of the capital budget, unresolved financial irregularities, and high attrition rates. This was discussed as the house continued deliberations on the Public Accounts Committee’s review report on the Annual Audit Report 2021 to 2022.
According to the review report by the Public Accounts Committee, the fiscal deficit, which is the difference between the government’s revenue and expenditure, rose from over Nu 3bn in 2020 to almost Nu 15bn in two financial years.
The report cited limited revenue growth and increasing public spending as reasons for the widening fiscal deficit.
“When fiscal deficit keeps increasing, we cannot put the country in debt and undertake all sorts of works where the fiscal deficit is more than gross domestic product. Fiscal deficits will be there, but the government of the day should devise plans to keep the fiscal deficit manageable,” said Ugyen Wangdi, Dramedtse-Ngatshang MP.
As for underutilisation of budget, the report stated that over 11 per cent of the total expenditure of over Nu 78bn allocated in the financial year 2021-2022 was underutilised.
Similarly, almost 20 per cent of the capital budget allocated in the same financial year was underutilised.
“Irregularities are increasing, and so is public debt. Revenue has dropped but the capital budget has not been efficiently utilised. This indicates three signs. The first is a weak economy. Second is a need for improvement in good governance. And then it also indicates not having stringent public procurement rules and regulations,” said Passang Dorji (PhD), Bartsham-Shongphu MP.
During the deliberation, the prime minister said that the committee’s report should insert another chapter analysing the quality of debt apart from just mentioning the debt numbers.
“At the end of every fiscal year, about 18 to 20 per cent of the budget is mostly underutilised. Since the 2019-2020 financial year, I have asked the institutions that during the end of the financial year in June and July, the expenditure increases substantially. Works are done when it is time to show the annual accounts, spending at once. It is not okay to spend capital budget at the end of a financial year.”
The prime minister also added that as the country’s economy grows, the debt will also keep on increasing.
The Joint Sitting adopted the Public Accounts Committee’s 12 recommendations of which nine are on the Annual Audit Report for 2021-2022. The remaining three recommendations are on the Follow up on the Review Reports of Annual Audit Reports between 2010 and 2021.
All 67 members present voted in favour of the committee’s review report.
The Speaker of the National Assembly also asked the Public Accounts Committee to review the Performance Audit Report on Preparedness for Cyber Security and to report it to the Parliament.
Kinzang Lhadon
Edited by Sherub Dorji
