Budget – services

June 23, 2011Posted inGovernment
Here are more random thoughts on the budget. Please keep your comments coming. Education. 17% of the total budget will go towards education. And this does not include money for vocational training, which comes under a separate budget head. Excellent! Health. 7% of the total budget will go towards providing free healthcare. Excellent! Incidentally, the government earned Nu 130 million as “health contribution”. That works out to 7% of the total outlay for health. Not bad, considering that healthcare is provided “free of cost”. But we can do better: health contribution (which is currently 1% of basic pay) could…

Budget report

June 22, 2011Posted inGovernment12 Comments
The finance minister presented the government’s budget proposal on Monday. Here are some of my random thoughts on the budget. Pay increase. Last year’s pay hike for public servants cost the government Nu 380 million. PIT increase. The government made an extra Nu 247 million in personal income taxes last year, mainly because of the pay hike. Tax refund. The government collected Nu 28 million by increasing vehicle taxes unlawfully last year. At the Supreme Court’s orders, the government has refunded that money to the taxpayers. Government expenditure. The government’s expenditure for this financial year is budgeted at Nu…

License to kill

June 16, 2011Posted inGovernment8 Comments
It’s good that the government will rake in an extra 10 million bucks from the auction of alcohol vendor licenses in Southern Bhutan. The bids were exceptionally high. Many of them sold for twice, thrice and even five-times the earlier amount. And one of them – the license to sell wholesale liqueur in Kuchidaina, Samtse – saw a whopping 2020% jump. That the government will make that extra money is good news. But we should also be concerned. Our readiness to pay huge license fees means that the alcohol business is thriving. And that just confirms that the government…

Secondary tertiary policy

June 9, 2011Posted inEducation, Government13 Comments
About a year ago, on the 26th of July 2010, the prime minister launched the Tertiary Education Policy. The policy, one of this government’s most significant declarations so far, aims to enrich tertiary education in the country by streamlining how colleges and universities are planned, funded, registered, licensed and accredited. The education minister described the 112-page policy as, “… a road map for the development and expansion of tertiary education in the country,” and boasted that it would contribute to making our country a “knowledge hub” and our people an “IT enabled knowledge society.” In his introduction to the…

Screaming for answers

May 30, 2011Posted inGovernment17 Comments
The picture above, taken by Bhutan Today, shows victims of the recent Chamkhar fire huddling around their possessions. Look at that picture. It should make you feel grateful. The picture shows that the residents were able to save at least some of their belongings from the fire that engulfed entire houses. They seem to have rescued clothes, mattresses, blankets, tables, carpets, pots, cupboards and even a bukhari from the fire that destroyed 33 houses. Given the tragic circumstances, we should be grateful for that. Look at that picture again. It should now make you feel frustrated. The picture shows…

Stop digging!

May 29, 2011Posted inGovernment, Justice11 Comments
Denis Healey, a British politician, once famously said: “When you’re in a hole, stop digging.” Digging. That’s what the government is doing by issuing guidelines to relax the implementation of the controversial Tobacco Control Act. According to the guidelines: Any Bhutanese bringing in tobacco products, more than the permissible quantity for personal consumption through designated port of entry, will not be directly charged for smuggling, but would be levied a 200 percent tax. The excess quantity would be seized, the citizenship identity card number noted, so that the offender would be charged on the second attempt to bring in…

Saving McKinsey

May 23, 2011Posted inGovernment23 Comments
McKinsey is costing the government US$ 9.1 million. That works out to about Nu 432 million. That’s a lot of money. The government knows it. And that’s probably why the government makes it a point to tell us that the McKinsey project will bring about “savings” in excess of the US$ 9.1 million being charged by them. About two years ago, when McKinsey’s “accelerating Bhutan’s socio-economic development” project was first announced, we were told that, “The savings the government makes through this project will more than make up for the consultancy cost.” A year later, amid increasing public concern…

Taking charge

April 11, 2011Posted inGovernment16 Comments
Here are two reasons why we should welcome news that the prime minister has formally taken charge of the foreign affairs portfolio: One, the foreign ministry, an important portfolio, has been without a minister for about a year. And two, this is a good opportunity for the government to reduce the size of the administration. Eleven ministers (a prime minister and 10 cabinet ministers) for a country of 700,000 people and a GDP of barely US$ 1.3 billion is excessive by any measure. Switzerland, for instance, has 7 ministers for 8 million people and a GDP of US$ 500…

Saving face

March 9, 2011Posted inGovernment35 Comments
The Supreme Court has ruled that the government violated the Constitution by raising taxes without seeking the Parliament’s approval. This is a landmark verdict. But the verdict should not be seen as a loss for the government. Nor should it be seen as a win for the opposition party. In fact it should be seen, and celebrated, for what it really is: a resounding victory for the democratic process. Even so, the government made a mistake – a serious mistake – by imposing taxes unilaterally and, in so doing, violated the Constitution. For that, the government must accept moral…

Price increases

January 12, 2011Posted inGovernment23 Comments
A civil servant tells me that the recent salary increase has made him poorer! How? Because his pay increase barely covers the corresponding increase in the cost of rent, fuel and groceries. This is his statement of expenditure: We can’t do much about the increase in the cost of fuel and onions. They reflect price hikes in India and have nothing to do with salary increases here. But we can’t allow rents and the prices of other goods to shoot up every time civil servants get a pay hike. This undermines the whole purpose of a pay increase. And…