Opposition lawmakers demand removal of agenda of Finance Ministry from HoR meeting

Kathmandu: Although the agenda was set to hold deliberation on the headings of the Finance Ministry in today’s meeting of the House of Representatives, lawmakers of the main opposition party, CPN (UML), have urged to remove this agenda from the meeting after the question was raised regarding Finance Minister Janardan Sharma making changes to tax rate on the eve of presenting the budget in the parliament.

UML’s Chief Whip Bishal Bhattarai urged to remove the agenda of discussion on the Finance Ministry from today’s HoR meeting as serious questions have already been raised on the issue of budget preparation.

According to the media reports, the Finance Minister made the last-minute changes to the tax rate in the budget through ‘unauthorized’ persons the night before he was to present the budget in parliament.

He said, “We lawmakers of the CPN (UML) are not ready to hold a discussion on the headings of the Finance Ministry as well as to listen to the reply of the Finance Minister. It should be removed from today’s agenda. Only after that, we will participate in the discussion on the headings of other ministries.”

After such demand from the lawmakers of the opposition party, Speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota proceeded ahead with the meeting, saying his serious attention was drawn to the issues raised by the lawmakers.