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Kathmandu,Tuesday April 18, 2000 Baishakh 06, 2057.
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Govt bent on depot closure
By a Post Reporter
KATHMANDU, April 17 - At a time when remote mid
western villages begin to face food shortages leading to the spread of diseases,
government officials today said reversing the decision to close down food depots would
mean going against the agreement between the government and Asian Development Bank (ADB).
"We are compelled to honor the agreement
between the government and ADB at a time when the process of receiving loan has
begun," Joint Secretary at the Ministry of Supplies Ram Kumar Shrestha said today.
Shrestha was answering queries raised by members of
the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) today which had asked the government to
review its decision to close down 41 of the 77 depots of the Nepal Food Corporation (NFC)
based on loan conditions set by ADB and a hastily prepared report.
Based on the report that was rushed through, the
government closed these depots on Dec. 31 last year. Many of these depots are in remote
mountainous areas that are hit by food shortages every spring and in some areas lead to
spread of diseases claiming hundreds of lives every year.
PAC members said that there was no mention in the
agreement that said these depots had to be closed down. "The agreement says there has
to be structural changes in NFC ... when does this translate to closure of depots in
remote parts of the country," asked CPN-UML’s Ishwor Pokhrel.
Pokhrel said controlling corruption and
overstaffing and developing self dependency by decreasing the subsidy on food grains were
the points raised by ADB in the agreement.
Shrestha admitted that there was no mention of the
closure of depots in the agreement but during follow up reports and review, ADB has
repeatedly asked the government on why there was delay in closing these depots.
Officials in the past have admitted that pressure
from the Finance Ministry to complete the report by July 1999 had made them rush through
the report without having time to consider the geographical and economical factors of the
areas where the depots were being shut down.
And failure to submit the report within the
specified time would have meant delay or possible loss of the loan assistance from ADB.
ADB had pledged to grant a loan assistant of US$ 50 million for the second agriculture
program but had set conditions that the number of depots and employees of the corporation
needs to be cut down under the reforms program.
NFC General Manager Beni Bahadur Rawal said the
government had not directed the corporation to reopen the closed food depots. However,
documents showed that the government had asked the ministry to take action after PAC had
directed for reviewing the decision and take such actions only after doing proper
homework.
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