Kathmandu, July 2: With the end of the fiscal year 2024/25 fast approaching, the government has accelerated its spending on development projects, disbursing Rs 15.42 billion over the past two weeks alone.

According to the Comptroller General Office (CGO), the government had spent only Rs 144.48 billion—or 41.01 percent—of the allocated Rs 352.35 billion capital expenditure by the end of the 11th month. However, in the first half of the final month, this figure rose to Rs 159.92 billion, marking a notable increase of more than four percent in just 15 days.

This last-minute rush has become a recurring pattern, where development works remain sluggish throughout most of the fiscal year and only gather momentum toward the end. For instance, by mid-April this year, only 29 percent of the capital budget had been utilized. Yet, as in previous years, construction projects have been hastily pushed forward in the final stretch.

Historical data supports this trend. In fiscal year 2023/24, the government spent Rs 50 billion between mid-June and mid-July, which accounted for over 27 percent of the total development expenditure. Similarly, during the same period in FY 2022/23, 17.28 percent of the total capital outlay was expended in the final month alone. The Office of the Auditor General (OAG) reported that in that year, Rs 245.67 billion was spent during the last month, with Rs 88.66 billion of it disbursed in the final week.

Uttar Kumar Khatri, a joint-secretary at the Ministry of Finance, explained that the spike in end-of-year spending is largely due to payments being processed for work completed earlier in the year. Delayed settlements also tend to be finalized during this time.

The habit of delaying development activities until the last hour is mainly driven by the pressure to meet spending targets and exhaust allocated budgets before the fiscal year closes. However, this rush often results in substandard project execution, disruptions to public mobility, and heightened safety concerns—particularly on poorly constructed roads.

Over the past decade, the government has consistently failed to utilize even 70 percent of its development budget. Last fiscal year, only around 61 percent of the allocated capital expenditure was actually spent.

In the latest two-week period, total government spending reached Rs 91 billion, of which Rs 54.72 billion was directed toward recurrent expenditures.

Though the Financial Procedure and Fiscal Responsibility Act-2020 prohibits government bodies from making withdrawals or incurring expenses in the final week of the fiscal year, this provision is rarely enforced in practice.

People’s News Monitoring Service