All Nepalis have foreign debts: Auditor General RSS KATHMANDU, June 28 - Every Nepali has a foreign debt of Rs. 13,000 on his/her head. The government of Nepal has so far taken 324 billion 540 million rupees of foreign loans, according to the statistics of the Office of the Auditor General. Auditor General Gehendranath Adhikari disclosed at a programme organized by the Reporters' Club Nepal here Wednesday that an audit of the expenditure accounts of the government of Nepal showed arrears of Rs. 28 billion 530 million. He said the arrears stood at Rs. 7 billion 240 million in 2005 and the Ministries with the highest amount in arrears are the Ministry of Finance with arrears of 25 per cent, the Ministry of Defence with arrears of 12 per cent, the Ministry of Home Affairs with an arrears of 10 per cent, the Ministry of Physical Planning and Works with an arrears of eight per cent and the Ministry of Local Development with an arrears of seven per cent. Stating that the arrears in revenue that the government is yet to realize so far stands at approximately Rs 28 billion, he said the revenue would gradually increase with the implementation of the same. He said as the government has been incurring a big loss from the public corporations, it would be appropriate to either privatize these corporations or sell their shares. The Auditor General said that the large amount of arrears was because of the non-transparency of the finance budget and the miscellaneous budget. Presenting the details of the Royal Palace expenditure, he said an amount of Rs. 165 million 700,000 was spend in fiscal year 2001/2002, Rs. 481 million 30,000 in fiscal year 2002/2003, Rs. 543 million 60,000 in fiscal year 2003/2004 and Rs. 365 million 60,000 in fiscal year 2004/2005 under this head. Posted on: 2006-06-28 09:31:13 (Server Time)