Kathmandu. Members of the Finance Committee under the House of Representatives have demanded that the details of the expenditure made in Nepal through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) be made public.
In today’s meeting of the Finance Committee, MP Ganga Karki stated that US President Donald Trump has called the expenditure made in Nepal through USAID a fraud and said that the government should clarify where and how the money was spent.
‘The President of Nepal himself has called the amount given by the US through USAID for Nepal’s fiscal federalism a ‘fraud’. Informally, it has been learned that the amount was spent through the Natural Resources and Finance Commission. The Commission should be asked for an answer on this issue,” said MP Karki.
MP Gyanendra Bahadur Karki asked in which context the US President called USAID’s assistance ‘fraud’. He also raised the issue of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) grant being signed when he was the Finance Minister and that it was passed by all parties in Parliament. He also said that the bills under discussion in the Finance Committee should be discussed and finalized quickly.
MP Surya Bahadur Thapa Chhetri said that the issues raised by the US President should be discussed in Parliament and not in the committee. ‘There is no need to discuss the issues raised by Trump here. This is a matter for Parliament rather than the committee,’ he said. ‘We can ask the Finance Ministry for details on the period of time and on what programs the USAID spent. Let us write a letter about this and ask for details from the ministry.’ Similarly, he also raised the issue of the Finance Committee meeting being held later than the scheduled time, the discussion of more issues outside the agenda, and the low effectiveness of the committee’s work.
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