Govt. makes less than one third of capital expenditure in 10 months

The government has utilized only 33 percent of the allocated budget under capital expenditure while the end of the current fiscal year is only two months away.

According to the Financial Comptroller General Office (FCGO), the government, during mid-July 2021 and mid-May 2022, spent only Rs 118 billion in capital expenditure out of the budget of Rs 378 billion allocated for the construction of infrastructure projects. It makes only 31.28 percent of the targeted expenditure under the heading.

The FCGO records show that the government now needs to spend the rest of Rs 259 billion within a couple of months if it is to fully utilize the development budget. This has led to the risk of making unproductive expenditures by the government authorities.

Like almost every year, the government is likely to speed up spending on development projects only at the last hour of the current fiscal year, which will end in mid-July. The rush for construction work in the last quarter of the fiscal year every time has raised question regarding the quality of the infrastructures built in haste along with the fiscal discipline within the government system.

Despite the government’s commitment to make capital expenditure on time, almost every year the authorities concerned are unable to do so. Last year too, the government spent around 25 percent of the development budget in the last one month alone.

The government had utilized 227.73 billion out of 352.91 billion allocated for capital expenditure in 2020/21. Overall, the capital expenditure utilization reached 64.69 percent in the last fiscal year.