By Madan Lamsal


The government is changing the name of the ‘fiscal deficit’ into ‘fixed deposit’ so that Nepal’s book of accounts will improve, for forever. Our Finance Minister (FM) who is not only a PhD but also a post doctoral ‘Fellow-of-Reds’ in the guerrilla warfare economics is determined to present a full-fledged budget, come whatever may. Because, he has a vision for both long and short-terms. As a long term, it is publicly declared objective of the FM’s party to endow Nepal a proletarian dictatorship veering out the country from the clutches of the influence of expansionist, imperialist, capitalist and revisionist powers of the world. To meet this end, FM’s party thinks that it should rule the country for another fifty years. And how can that be possible without bringing about a full-fledged budget, which actually lays foundation stone to rule for next five decades?




Who will implement this great vision? Simply, the cadres of own party. No less ! No more !! “Therefore, we are going to increase budget allocation on headings that will send money straight either to the party whole-timers or grassroots people of our party,” the FM remarked during a lunchtime press conference last week.


On the occasion, the FM also made a number of supplementary plans public. One, the government is changing the name of the ‘fiscal deficit’ into ‘fixed deposit’ so that Nepal’s book of accounts will improve, for forever. Two, the government would treat every Nepali like his party cadre and every cadre of party as Nepali. “Once we start calling it fixed deposit we will get additional leeway to implement our different policies including subsidy in arms and ammunitions, if not in fertilizer,” said the FM.


The short term vision of the budget would rightly be on the November elections and the economic benefits of it. FM shared that the declaration of these polls was in fact a well-thought about strategy to revive the economy. Therefore, the government is dead against revival of the dead Constituent Assembly, he declared. According to him, the salaries paid to the CA members and ministers and the rise given in that from time to time, saved the country’s economy going into recession for the last four years. “But the potency of that trick was declining with the passing months. So we declared election,’ he explained.


He viewed that the businesses were becoming stingier in the recent months making it difficult for the government to collect more taxes which could be given by the government to the party cadres to generate economic activities. He also divulged that the CA members who represented the poor in the past elections were no longer poorer as they collected enough money over the last four years. Thus, they were spending less and saving more out of their salary and perks. This explains how well our FM understands the famous theory of economics that the marginal propensity to consume for an individual goes down with every increase in the income.


Elaborating on how the elections will revive the economy, the FM said: “This will give double whammy. The politicians are likely to flow out the money they have stashed in their vaults into the economy. This money will be spent in the elections and that will create economies of scale. When the new set of people gets elected, a new round of consumer spending from the salary they get will be started. That will give a new fillip to the economy.” Looks like his party is determined to rule for next fifty years.