Finance Minister Dr Baburam Bhattarai on Sunday apologized to the Legislature-Parliament for his carelessness while presenting the government's budget for the current fiscal year 2008/009 on Friday.
Dr Bhattarai apologized to the house after Nepali Congress member Laxman Ghimire raised concern over Bhattarai's "blunders".
As Speaker Subas Nembang was about to proceed with deliberations on the government's budget, Ghimire expressed serious objection as Finance Minister Bhattarai had skipped 35 major clauses while reading out the budget speech.
"Since the minister has skipped several major points that contain more than Rs 36 billion budget, how can the parliament deliberate the proposed budget?" he questioned. "So either the concerned minister should apologize to the House for his irresponsible act or rewrite the draft before presenting it for discussion," he said.
According to Ghimire, Minister Bhattarai had left out some of the portions of Clauses 135, 152, 171, 243, 270 and 271 of the draft. Whereas 29 other clauses from 164 to 256 had been totally skipped during the presentation. Among them, major clauses are 184 that allocates Rs 4.28 billion for higher education and 256 that allocates Rs 2.50 billion to set up a peace trust.
Apologizing for the mistakes, Minister Bhattarai requested the parliament to start discussion on the presented draft.
