June 22: A big portion of foreign assistance meant for the programme to strengthen democratic system and to enhance capacity for governance improvement remains to be spent.
This situation has arisen in the Provincial and Local Governance Support Programme (PLGSP) as the province and local levels failed to give adequate concern and attention. The PLGSP is run under the Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration and it is the main national project of the government focused on promoting federal good governance.
PLGSP commenced on the very first day of the Fiscal Year 2076/77 (16th July 2019) for a duration of four years. However, the PLGSP was formally launched only on 23rd August 2019 after being approved by the Council of Ministers.
A Joint Financing Arrangement (JFA) was signed between the Ministry of Finance and Development Partners including the DEID, Norway, SDC and the EU on 4th September 2019to implement the programme.
Of the Rs 14.95 billion mobilized for operating the programme from Fiscal Year 2076/77 to 2079/80 BS, only Rs 3.23 billion has been spent, according to the National Programme Directorate Manager, Bhupendra Sapkota. He shared this at a programme on Wednesday.
According to Sapkota, several provinces and local levels did not turn up for taking the assistance for implementation of the targeted programme within the stipulated time while some failed to utilize the funds properly even after taking the assistance. This has resulted in the programme running into arrears.
The objectives of the programme are to strengthen provincial and local governance system and procedures with an improved inter-governmental relationship to maximize benefits of cooperative federalism and to enhance the capacity of provincial and local governments to deliver services and development outcomes effectively to the citizens.
Similarly, the major activities of the project are to prepare policy, laws, strategies, directives and guidelines for federal, provincial and local governments, and to strengthen inter-governmental mechanisms for full functioning.
Establishing and strengthening the Provincial Center for Good governance (PCGG), re-structured as LDTA regional training center, at the province as a center for excellence to drive the overall capacity development activities for the local governments is also one of PLGSP's activities.
The government has contributed Rs 3.45 billion while Nepal's development partners such as the United Nations, the European Union and Norway among others have given grants of Rs 11.5 billion for the PLGSP. Out of this amount, Rs 1.89 billion was allocated to the federal government, Rs 7.22 billion to the provincial governments and Rs 5.83 billion to the local governments.
The programme envisaged 14 different outcomes including formulation of Acts and policies required for the new federal structures and the strengthening of inter-governmental mechanism and public finance management. It particularly aims to make the government bodies at all levels and the inter-governmental mechanisms fully functional to support the federal governance system as per the constitution.
The latest meeting of the National Implementation Committee and National Fiscal Risk Advisory Sub-committee made an assessment of the achievements of the PLGSP so far and the initiatives made to achieve these outcomes. The meeting also pledged to put in maximum efforts for making the programme result-oriented in the coming days.
The meeting concluded that the coming year would be taken as the transitional year in the context of a big chunk of the support amount remaining to be spent even though the programme implementation term is about to terminate. Then after, the PLGSP's new action plan and framework would be determined on the basis of wide-ranging discussion with the stakeholders.
