Agitating business entrepreneurs of Hetuda submit memo to CM Lama

By Our Correspondent,Hetauda, Aug. 14: Chief Minister of Bagmati Province, Bahadur Singh Lama (Tamang) has said that transparency and good governance are the need of the moment and problems are seen as the concerned parties are not maintaining them.  

According to him, citizens should also be equally responsible along with the state to maintain good governance. 

Accepting a memorandum from the entrepreneurs on their protest against the tax rates hike by Hetauda Sub-metropolitan City, at the Chief Minister's Office in Hetauda on Tuesday,  he emphasised that all citizens along with industrialists and businessmen should be transparent.

Hetauda Sub-metropolis hiked the tax rates from the budget of the current Fiscal Year 2024/25. 

Lama said that along with tax collection, the government has to provide a suitable environment and security to the industrialists.

Stating that there will be a dialogue with the local level about the problems including tax rates imposed on the industrialists, Chief Minister Lama said that the provincial and federal governments have no right to interfere in the single right of the local level.

"There was a problem in the province in the past when bids were invited for construction works without the certainty of the budget. But when I was the Minister for Economic Affairs and Law, I started the practice of awarding contracts only after ensuring the budget and making arrangements for the payment to the construction entrepreneurs," he said to the delegation of the businesspeople.

CM Lama said that joint initiative and commitment of all was necessary to control corruption. 

On the occasion, the Chairman of Makwanpur Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Krishna Kumar Gupta, drew the attention of Chief Minister Lama to the problems they would face after the hike in tax rates when they were reeling under economic recession without the consent of the business community and requested him to coordinate to solve the problem.

Meanwhile, the protest of the business community entered the second day on Tuesday. They also handed over a memorandum to the district coordination committee and political parties, calling on the general public not to pay taxes.

Organisations such as Makwanpur Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Construction Entrepreneurs Association Makwanpur started a phase-wise protest movement from Monday.

Gupta also said that the industrialists would go to the court to file a case collectively against the tax hike. 

The local government in Hetauda has increased the tax by up to 150 per cent, according to the businesspeople.