Inappropriate

June 23, 2011Posted inGovernment, Local Government3 Comments
The Budget Appropriation Bill for 2011-12 proposes how Nu 42,174 million of the government's Consolidated Fund will be divided during the coming financial year. Central agencies will keep a good 74% of the funds. The 20 dzongkhags together will get about 20% of the funds. And the 205 gewogs combined will get barely 6% of the funds. And that includes money to build farm roads. Take away farm road construction, and the winners of the forthcoming local government elections will have very little money to fulfill their campaign promises.

Budget – taxes

June 23, 2011Posted inGovernment13 Comments
During his budget report last year, the finance minister informed the National Assembly that the government was implementing a range of measures to rationalize the sales tax and customs duty rates, and to broaden the sales tax base. The measures were expected to bring in additional revenue of Nu 450 million. The government eventually withheld the implementation of all the increased taxes, except those that were imposed on vehicles. The taxes on vehicles were also lifted after the Supreme Court declared them to be unlawful. This year, the government has submitted the Tax Revision Bill 2011 to the National…

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…

Bhutan builders

June 17, 2011Posted inEconomy17 Comments
Jai Prakash and Gammon have been selected to construct the 1000MW Punatsangchhu - II hydropower project. Gammon, Hindustan Construction, and Larsen and Turbo are building the 1200MW Punatsangchhu – I hydropower project. Hindustan Construction, Larsen and Turbo, and Jai Prakash built the 1020 MW Tala Hydropower Project. A select group of contractors, characterized by the complete absence of Bhutanese contractors, public or private, even after decades of experience in hydropower construction in our country.

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…

Congratulations!

June 11, 2011Posted inMonarchy10 Comments
25 additional colonels make our armed forces that much more stronger. His Majesty the King, who is the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, granted promotions to the accomplished officers this morning. I thank the officers for their outstanding services to the tsa-wa-sum, and wish them and their families a very hearty Tashi Delek!

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…

Utter nonsense

June 7, 2011Posted inLegislature12 Comments
The National Assembly’s live TV broadcasts are proving useful. One observer, for instance, a senior civil servant, followed the recent debate on the Anticorruption Bill, and noticed that I “didn’t utter a word” during the discussions. She spoke to Kuensel about it, which reported that: A senior civil servant said the opposition leader was very emphatic about the severity of the tobacco Act’s penalty that he went to the extent of hiring a lawyer for the first Bhutanese to be convicted under the Act, pro bono. “He didn’t utter a word when members were deliberating the corruption amendment bill,”…

Digging deeper

June 3, 2011Posted inJustice34 Comments
Yesterday, the government released the Tobacco Control Rules and Regulations. The rules, which come a week after the government had issued guidelines to relax the implementation of the Tobacco Control Act, have made matters even more complicated. According to the rules, we will not be sent to jail for attempting to bring tobacco into the country without declaring it or for possessing tobacco products. Instead, we’ll be let go with a warning or penalized in line with Sections 86, 87 and 90 which state that: 86.     If a person tries to bring permissible quantity of tobacco and tobacco product…

Facebook strikes

June 2, 2011Posted inDemocracy, Justice13 Comments
After several friends suggested it, I’ve added a new page called “News clips”. The idea is to provide links to news articles, especially to critical ones, that talk about what the opposition party and I have been doing. The first link is to a story by Kuensel. It’s about the growing influence of social media in Bhutan, a discussion that took place during the recent Mountain Echoes literary festival. Social media has already made remarkable inroads in Bhutan. In past five years, there’s been a proliferation of discussion forums, social networking sites and blogs. And some of them –…

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…

Financial services … for who?

May 27, 2011Posted inLegislature11 Comments
A joint sitting of the Parliament passed the Financial Services Bill. 66 members voted for the Bill. Only one member voted against it. That solitary member was me. I voted against the Bill because it is discriminatory – it favors foreign investors over our own people. Section 50 of the Bill specifies that a Bhutanese individual cannot own more than 20% of a financial institution’s shares; and that a Bhutanese company cannot own more than 30% of a financial institution’s shares. But the Bill does not specify the amount of shares a foreign company can own in a financial…

Going out of control

May 26, 2011Posted inJustice13 Comments
The Tobacco Control Act is going out of control. The Thimphu district court sentenced Gelong Sonam Tshering, a monk, to 3 years in prison for possessing a mere 48 packets of chewing tobacco. He appealed to the High Court. But the High Court has upheld the 3-years prison sentence. Countless others – I’ve lost count ... really – are in detention or undergoing trail in various parts of the country. We’re told that there are a couple of tobacco smugglers among them. But all the others were caught with small amounts of tobacco, obviously meant for their personal consumption.…