Govt officials set to skip Geneva UN rights meet

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12 THE KATHMANDU POST | FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2013 FRIDAY FACES BEAUTIES ON DUTY SMS ZONE DUE to technical problems with our website, this week’s SMS messages could not be decoded. We thank all the readers for their texts and apologise for these unforeseen circumstances. We hope to recover the messages sent so far, but we still request our readers to resend their answers to last week’s question: How did you celebrate Valentine’s Day this year? —Editor NEPAL’S search for its next beauty queen will see a lucky young lady crowned Miss Nepal at the Fanta Hidden Treasure Miss Nepal pageant set to take place at Hotel Annapurna in Durbar Marg on March 15. This year’s pageant is set to be a challenge for the top 18: Samikshya Shrestha, Rachana Bharati, Sipora Gurung, Bindu KC (Chettri), Maya Sawad, Ishani Shrestha, Sujata Balami, Meghna Shrestha, Shritima Shah, Pratima Giri, Oshima Banu, Raksha Thapa, Rojisha Shahi, Ashmita Sitoula, Sumi Lama, Renu Pokhrel, Aishworya Upadhaya and Riju Shrestha. These ladies have been selected from all parts of the country (a first in the Miss Nepal pageant’s decade-long history). All these young girls are vying for the title and the crown, and the Post wishes them the very best of luck. In Dharan, Miss Purwanchal participants participate in a blood donation programme that took place in the city’s Ghantaghar on Thursday. The 14 young ladies will be competing in a pageant set to take place on February 24. Fashionistas at the Costume Designers Guild Awards THE Post looks at some of the leading ladies from Hollywood who wooed us with their flare for fashion at the Costume Designers Guild Awards in Los Angeles on Tuesday. The awards season concludes with the Oscars scheduled to take place this Sunday. From left: The Blind Side and Mirror Mirror’s Lily Collins, 2001’s Oscar winner for the Best Actress category, Halle Berry, and Anne Hathaway, who was honoured with the spotlight award by the designers guild this year for her collaboration with costume designers Published and Printed by Kantipur Publications Pvt. Ltd. Kantipur Complex, Subidhanagar, Kathmandu, Nepal, Phone: 4480100, Fax: 977-1-4466320, e-mail: kpost@kantipur.com.np, Regd. No. 32/048/049, Chairman & Managing Director : Kailash Sirohiya, Director : Swastika Sirohiya, Editor-in-Chief : Akhilesh Upadhyay
Inside CROSS CURRENCY USD EUR JPY GBP CHF CAD AUD INR NR NR 87.5900 115.6451 9.3820 133.1762 94.1170 85.9526 89.6790 1.6015 INR 54.47 71.889 0.584 83.11 58.507 53.49 55.81 0.6244 AUD 0.9759 1.288 0.0104 1.489 1.049 0.958 0.0179 0.0112 CAD 1.0191 1.345 0.0109 1.5537 1.094 1.0438 0.0187 0.0116 CHF 0.9307 1.229 0.0099 1.419 0.9141 0.9533 0.0171 0.0106 GBP 0.6555 0.866 0.007 0.7047 0.6436 0.6716 0.0120 0.0075 JPY 93.22 123.23 142.8571 101.0101 91.7431 96.1538 1.7123 0.1066 EUR 0.7573 0.0081 1.1547 0.8137 0.7435 0.7764 0.0139 0.0086 USD 1.3205 0.0107 1.5256 1.0745 0.9813 1.0247 0.0184 0.0114 HOW TO READ THE TABLE The chart shows the rates of nine world currencies. Move across the table to find rates of exchange between any two currencies. One unit of the currency mentioned vertically is worth that amount in the currency mentioned horizontally. Nari Wedding and Gift Expo kicks off The seventh edition of the Nari Wedding and Gift Expo 2013 kicked off at Bhrikutimandap in Kathmandu on Thursday. Also, the sixth edition of Kopila Children Expo 2013 and Nepal International Consumer Expo (NICE) 2013 too began at the same venue. Organised by Direction Nepal, the events which will run through February 25 is expected to attract visitors from diverse backgrounds. Pg: IV POST REPORT KATHMANDU, FEB 21 GOVERNMENT expenditure contracted in the first half of the current fiscal year as ministries and other government authorities delayed authorising their subordinate agencies to spend the budget, according to the mid-term review of the budget for the current fiscal year. Government authorities are yet to authorise their subordinate implementing agencies to spend 55.66 percent of the budget, the report said. As a result, government expenditure shrank to Rs 104 billion as of first half of the fiscal year from Rs 111 billion in the same period a year ago. As far as the capital expenditure is concerned, it stood at just Rs 7.66 billion down over the sixmonth period — down from Rs 9.56 billion a year ago. The Finance Ministry said it authorised ministries and other agencies to spend the budget after the President endorsed budget ordinances. The President had endorsed two budget ordinances — first on July 16, 2012, authorising spending of the onethird of the last fiscal year’s budget, and second on November 22, 2012, for two-third budget spending. According to the budget review report, the Finance Ministry authorised ministries and other government agencies to spend a total of Rs 267 billion. But the latter only authorised their subordinate agencies to spend just Rs 119 billion — 44.34 percent of the amount authorised to be spent. Even several development programmes and projects are yet to get approval from the agencies concerned. First priority (P1) projects require the National Planning Commission’s (NPC) approval for implementation, FOREX U.S. Dollar 87.59 Euro 115.65 Pound Sterling 133.18 Swiss Franc 94.12 Australian Dollar 89.68 Canadian Dollar 85.95 Singapore Dollar 70.57 Japanese Yen 9.38 Chinese Yuan 14.04 Saudi Arab Riyal 23.36 Qatari Riyal 24.06 Thai Bhat 2.93 UAE Dihram 23.85 Malaysian Ringit 28.15 South Korean Won 8.06 Exchange rates fixed by Nepal Rastra Bank PRITHVI MAN SHRESTHA KATHMANDU, FEB 21 THE government has reintroduced the policy of waiving off loans of the victims of the decade-long conflict, people’s movement and Madhesh movement. This policy will be applicable to such loanees of nine government-owned banks and financial institutions. A Cabinet meeting on Thursday decided to waive off loans worth up to Rs 30,000 and interest of loans up to Rs 100,000 taken from Agriculture Development Bank Limited (ADBL), Rastriya Banijya Bank (RBB), Sana Kishan Bikas Bank (SKBB), Nepal Bank Limited and five Grameen Bikas banks. The then Maoists-led government had also introduced a similar policy through the budget for the fiscal year 2008-09, waiving off loans up to the same amount of conflict victims, small farmers and victims of natural disasters. “As we have been receiving complaints that a few victims failed to get benefits of the government’s programme four years ago, the new policy has been adopted to enable them to get the benefits,” said Joint Secretary Mahesh Dahal, who was recently appointed as the consul general for Hong Kong. Private sector for fresh CA polls POST REPORT KATHMANDU, FEB 21 NINE private sector bodies, including the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI), have said a fresh election is must to resolve the political stalemate. Organising a press meet on Thursday, they underscored the need for a national consensus government to hold the new election. “For this, the main responsibility lies with the political parties,” they said. “The private sector once again expresses its commitment to the democratic system and free market economy.” The private sector is of the view that the constitution should be written by holding a Constituent Assembly election through consensus among the parties. “For this, the parties should guarantee the election at the earliest,” they said. They, however, expressed dissatisfaction over the proposed ninepoint deal among the parties, saying not a single word has been incorporated in the deal to address the country’s economic issues. “The private sector is in favour of holding a fresh Constituent Assembly election,” said FNCCI President Suraj Vaidya. “But economic agendas should not be ignored.” The private sector bodies also stressed for consensus amongst the parties on the common minimum economic agenda. They also demanded timely budget presentation for the next fiscal year. “Development work has been stalled due to the presentation of the budget without policies and programmes for the last few years,” they said. MID-TERM BUDGET REVIEW Government expenditure contracts in first half Page III Asia’s biggest low-cost carrier AirAsia said Thursday its new airline joint venture with India’s giant tea-to-steel Tata conglomerate may start operations by year-end FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2013 | ekantipur.com Conflict, stir victims to get loan waiver The provision will be applicable to loanees of nine govt-owned BFIs FNCCI’s Senior Vice President Bhaskarraj Raj Karnikar stressed on the need for consensus among the parties at the time when the country has been gripped by rampant corruption, donation drive, capital flight, deteriorating rule of law and low production, among other issues. Ichha Raj Tamang, president of Nepal Land and Housing Developers’ Association, said timely election was only solution to the current political crisis. Jay Ram Lamichanne, president of the Federation of Contractors Association of Nepal, said the country’s economic growth has been projected to fall to 3.8 percent this year, while inflation is still in double digits. “The country’s economy is getting worse by the day as political actors are concentrated only on their parties’ agenda,” said Lamichanne. while second and third priority projects are to be endorsed by the line ministries. According to the mid-term review report, a majority of programmes and projects under the Ministry of Urban Development, Ministry of Education and Ministry of Irrigation were not the approved until mid-January. “A majority of the ministries have been found failing to get endorsed their programmes,” read the report. “This shows that ministries failed to comply with authorisation too.” The finance ministry had asked ministries and government agencies to get their programmes and projects approved by the NPC or by line ministries — whichever mode is applicable. During the review period, expenditure in foreign-aided projects has come down by 80.58 percent compared to the figure during the same period last year, according to the report. This provision, however, is expected to hit the government-owned banks’ profitability as they will only be compensated for the waiver of the principal amount, not interest Those who were killed and injured during the ‘people’s war, peoples’ movement’ and Madhesh movement could claim the benefit until mid-April 2013, according to the government decision. The government has also decided it will compensate the banks for the principle amount, while the banks themselves should bear the cost interest and penalty waiver. This provision, however, is expected to hit the government-owned banks’ profitability. A senior ADBL official said he could say nothing about the possible effects of the government’s decision on his bank before receiving the details of the decision. He, however, said the bank would face losses if they were forced to waive interest and penalty of performing loans and the ones that were taken later. Suspecting that even non-victims could be the possible beneficiaries under political pressure at the local level, he said the criteria should strongly be implemented. Four years ago, the government had compensated the banks with the amount of the loans waived along with 10 percent interest, which had been beneficial for government BFIs. According to a Finance Ministry source, the government had reimbursed a total of Rs 6.4 billion under the programme for years ago. ADBL had received more than Rs 4 billion, while Nepal Bank Limited received Rs 250 million, according to bank officials. Although the government has claimed the programme is aimed at offering relief to the victims, it will have far reaching consequences for banking institutions, according to experts. “The biggest impact of such a programme four years ago was people developed a tendency of not repaying loans with hope that the government would waive off such loans later,” said a central bank official. “On the other hand, tax collected from the people, which could have been spent for development activities, were spent in the name of benefiting victims.” The central bank official also said Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai’s promise duting his tenure as finance minister in 2008 that the government would also waive off loans of the loanees of Grammen Bikas banks encouraged many borrowers not to repay loans timely. “As a result, Sudur Pashchimanchal Grameen Bikas Bank and Purbanchal Grammen Bikas Bank went into red,” he said. Economist Keshav Acharya said waiving off loans is like injecting marijuana (ganja) into loanees, which provokes them not to repay loans. “We had completely reversed this programme in 2009 by giving certain benefits to the people who repaid loans timely,” said Acharya, who was the chief economic advisor at the Finance Ministry during the Madhav Kumar Nepal-led government. Besides affecting the BFIs’ profitability, the provision could also lead to the misuse of government resources given the fact that families of more than 18,000 people received relief from the government four years ago. But only 13,000 were actually killed during the conflict.
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Govt officials set to skip Geneva UN rights meet

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