Give us good governance

The statements made by some top- notch officials the other day to a gathering of reporters certainly reinforces the general perception that the country’s administration seriously lacks accountability, and that it is inefficient and corrupt. Not that successive governments were unaware of these problems. The truth however is, none of them has made any efforts to reform the system in order to enhance efficiency, discourage corrupt tendencies and to make the ministries more transparent and accountable although many tall promises to this effect were made. As a result, things have deteriorated to such an extent that it will certainly prove a difficult—if not an impossible task for Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala to deliver on his pledge to provide good governance. For, this endeavour can surely be likened to cleansing the Augean stables. It was for this reason alone that the call for overhauling the administration was made.

Two main problems stand out with regard to the administrative service. The first is rampant politicization of the bureaucracy which governments of the day feel they have the license to carry on unhindered and which many civil servants themselves encourage because they feel that the chakari culture (fawning upon in attendance) will reward them more than honesty and diligence will. This leads to the second problem—political protection for the corrupt. There is no doubt that a strong unholy nexus has been established between political leaders on the one hand and the administration on the other. Can the Koirala government dismantle this set-up which may perhaps have been nurtured since the Panchayat times? He will have to, if he is serious about providing "good governance".

As long as the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) remains a virtually impotent corruption fighting body, and as long as Public Accounts Committee hearings reveal a lot that ought to be followed up but nothing happens, good governance will always remain an unfulfilled promise. Going through the ritual of declaring property and wealth will become irrelevant in the absence of solid measures to reform the administration, to make it an efficient mechanism for carrying out as well as facilitating development work. What Koirala needs to do first of all is to ensure accountability among civil servants as well as among his ministers. Then, he should come up with measures that will strengthen the monitoring of work, property and wealth of every official and political leader in high places. Corruption fighting bodies, especially the CIAA must be further empowered. In the absence of these measures good, clean, accountable governance will not be possible.

Urban price index : Some implications

By Sushil R Mathema

While containing the domestic inflation has been a dominant economic problem in developing countries, its choice of measuring rod has been a debatable issue since long. It has been realised that the price index as a measure of domestic price changes is important. As such, indices like wholesale price index, national urban consumer price index (UCPI), consumer price index for agricultural labourers, industrial workers and construction workers are used the world over. However, Consumer Price Index is generally used as a measure of inflation in most countries on the ground that it more or less reflects the average changes over time in the prices paid by general consumers using a certain fixed market basket of goods and services.

In Nepal, the National Urban Consumer Price Index has been used as a measure of inflation and is solely computed and published by Nepal Rastra Bank- the central bank. The price index prepared by the bank is a Weighted Consumer Price Index and it represents the cost of living index of middle- income families residing in urban centres. Initially, the price indices developed by Nepal Rastra Bank were un-weighted ones. In order to make the information on price movements more realistic and scientific, a Household Budget Survey was conducted in FY 1972/73.

Thereafter, the concept of consumption weight was developed for preparing the price index in accordance with the consumption patterns of goods and services. With increased pressure on population and introduction of new goods and services in the market along with shift in the consumption pattern of the people, updating the design and composition of items in constructing UCPI was felt to be necessary.

Accordingly, a Multi-purpose Household Budget Survey was conducted in FY 1983/84 in 23 representative districts of the kingdom of which altogether 13 town municipalities were selected for the purpose of computation of price indices. It is general practice to conduct such survey at an interval of ten years period. The recently released National Urban Consumer Price Index is the outcome of the household budget survey undertaken in FY 1995/96 covering twenty one municipalities of Kathmandu valley, the hills and the terai. It is believed that changing consumption pattern within a span of more than ten years period have been better reflected in the new UCPI thus ensuring the reliability of the index itself.

A major shift has thus been observed in the consumption pattern of households with the share of spending on food and beverages declining by 9.43 percentage points from 62.63 percent to 53.20 percent while the share of spending on non-food and services has increased from 37.37 percent to 46.80 percent. Another remarkable shift in the consumption pattern under the food and beverages group is in the ‘rice’ spending which has declined from 24 percent to 14 percent of the total spending. This has led to structural improvement in computing changes in the price indices.

In the past, a greater fluctuation used to be observed in the movement of national prices whenever there occurred broad changes in the prices of the single item ‘rice’ as it has relatively greater weight in the basket of commodities involved in computation of UCPI. From now on, this problem will be virtually avoided. This is also being justified by the differences observed in inflation rates between earlier estimates and new estimates. The inflation rates from earlier estimates stands at 7.8 percent. 4.0 percent and 12.7 percent respectively for FY 1996/97, FY 1997/98 and FY 1998/99. But the revised series of inflation rates presents more genuine representation at 8.1 percent, 8.4 percent and 11.3 percent respectively. This shows how important and necessary it is to conduct periodic household budget survey and revise the UCPI for ensuring better reflection of movement of national prices.

The survey has also revealed increased household spending on education, healthcare and housing which constitute a share of 7 percent, 8 percent and 14.9 percent of total spending from the earlier 4 percent, 4.6 percent and 12.7 percent respectively. The additional weight shift towards spending on non-food and services from spending on food and beverages assures that from now on the impact of changes in whole-sale price index (WPI) of India on UCPI of Nepal will be less pronounced. A ten percent change in WPI of India is to bring out 4 to 5 percent change in UCPI of Nepal, which was mostly induced from the effect of change in the index of food items of commodities basket of WPI of India. As the weightage of spending on food items has reduced in the revised series, the effect of rise in WPI of India will be less in the present context. Moreover, changes in international prices including that of international petroleum prices will now bring a greater possibility of inflationary movement of national prices as a whole.

Nonetheless, such shift in the share of spending towards non-food and services group in the revised indices also indicates that there has been an improvement in the average income level of common people though at a slow pace. The government therefore needs to provide greater impetus towards bringing out amicable policy to combat the impact of unexpected rise of internal prices including mainly of petroleum products such as diesel and kerosene (petroleum item is not included in the basket). The government need not worry about the possibility of adverse implication of international price rise on the movement of national domestic prices. But a cautious approach has to be undertaken to mitigate the effects of unexpected inflationary pressure rising from such movements of international prices.

When unwanted people come

By Vinod Adhikary

We live in a world where it’s near to impossible to satisfy people. You can’t do that even through giving. People do not appreciate giving. Instead they want more, they ask for more. Try to satisfy somebody by fulfilling their needs, they ask for more. This cycle goes on and on. Here is a little incident I was surprised by.

"Jaya Shambho" buzzed into my ears as I walked outside the wide open wooden door of our house. I looked outside the main gate thinking there might be some beggar wanting some daan or dakchhina. There you go, he was already in! Well I was surprised to see "Uncle Beggar", which was the name I gave him- inside our house already. I mean, is that a thing to do? First of all, he’s a beggar and secondly it’s not his relative’s house or his own where he can walk in directly, and push the button. From the first creak of the door, thinking that it might be some other person, because I believed beggars do not really open the gate, walk in and push the button, I had said silently "Goddamn, who is it again?" To my surprise, there was the beggar in front of me..

May be he heard me, which is why he cried out louder, "Jaya Shambho".

My father was walking out of the door carrying a big wooden plate type thing known as nanglo full of things, the ones which are needed for saraddha- yearly remembrance of a specific dead family member.

Since it was my mother's fourth day after her periods, she wasn’t allowed to walk in from that wide opened door until the saraddha was over, so she just waited outside. I always wanted mother in so that I could get some help in the kitchen, but there was nothing I could do, this was one of the rules. I guess we just follow these kinds of rules without knowing their meaning. If we ask them we get the reply, "Well son, that’s what history has been doing". We just follow it; yeah that’s what we do. I walked outside with a stainless steel plate full of rice grain. The "uncle" was gone.

"You can take it back in", mother told me, " I’ve asked him to come back later, but soon. After the saraddha is over, we can feed him, and this would be very nice, and kind of us, and they might even give us some blessings if we make them satisfied and happy. Son, even the lord hears the cries of the poor."

Well, without listening to a word I replied, "Yeah, whatever mom," in a soft low voice because father was down there following the instructions of the priest who had been helping my father do the saraddha.

The saraddha was over after about half an hour, I asked mother to walk in as soon as the saraddha was over. My father and our priest walked out of the dining hall, and now it was our turn for food. Mother was worried, and I could see it in her face.

"What’s the matter mom?" I asked.

"Nothing, the beggar was supposed to be here, I think he is waiting downstairs, can you go check"

"Sure mom" I replied. He wasn’t there.

"Well mom, I think this is unnecessary, can we just not pour that rice in his bag" I said that because my brother had taught me not to be too kind to unnecessary people, because, as there is a Nepalese saying "Aunlo dinda dundulno nilne".

"No", mother’s face showed anger, "let me do my work and you do yours"

"Jaya Sambho"

"There, there he is. You can go down now and do your work"

With a mad face and some mumbling, she walked outside the wooden door, which was shut after the saraddha was over.

Mother walked in, cleaned her hands and sat for her food that was almost ice cold by then. She was half way through, while I was done. So, she asked me to go check the "uncle". And I did so because I didn’t want her to shout at me. I came back in and told her that the "uncle" was about to be done with his food. I came in for some television. I then went for another check because mom asked me to. This time the "uncle" was about to leave. I thanked him with a smiling face for coming.

He then asked me "No daan, dakchhina? ".

Goddamn, I was surprised and in the height of my rage I answered," Well for your information, no! You should be thankful for the food my mother provided you."

He left. I just watched him make his way home. As he moved away, I just smiled within. I still couldn’t believe it. He didn’t appreciate our kindness.

UNESCO and education for all

By Ramesh Prasad Gautam

The revolution of 1951-52 brought democracy in our country. People brought education to a focus. On Fagun 2007, a new and democratic government was formed by the proclamation of King Tribhuvan. After introducing democracy for the first time, the country recognised education as the right of the people. But at that time only two percent of the people were able to read and write. Most of the people were illiterate and ignorant. There were only 321 primary schools and 11 secondary schools in the whole of the kingdom. There were no curriculum and graded textbooks of any sort. The textbooks used in the schools were written and published outside the country and sold to students here.

Until 1950 there was no systematic education system for the common people and the practice of educating the girl was totally neglected. Some boys from rich family who felt the need of education for their children, and the children of Ranas were taught at home by private tutors. Some parents even managed to send their sons to India for higher education. The ushering in of democracy paved the way to educational development in the country. Schools were opened by the public themselves with their own financing. In 1970, the number of primary schools had leapt. Similarly, secondary and higher education began. The country had to brace itself for bigger challenges and better things. Then came the national educational system plan, which aimed at changing the educational scenario completely. In the process of educational development, the curriculum implementation plan brought some improvements with existing system. But, the country could not get expected result in this respect.

The government has expected to bring about significant improvement in education system according to the recommendation of National Education Commission Report 1992. The existing system of class 6-7 of lower secondary level has been changed into 6-8 and the implementation of district level examination in lower secondary level (grade 8) has been practised for the last five years. Similarly in 1997, Higher National Education Commission was made for the shake of educational development.

Ministry of Education brought out an action plan ‘education for all’. This plan of action has specified the national goal of preprimary education as to enhance the physical, intellectual socio-emotional, moral and creative development of the children. The basic and primary education plan developed by the Ministry of Education has specified three goals of early childhood development: (1) To initiate an institutionalised provision of guided development of children of 4-5 age group in mental, physical and intellectual spheres, (2) to create awareness among parents and community, (3) to reduce the number of under-age children.

It is high time to develop a national integrated childhood development scheme and implement relevant programme at the national level. Hence, the children become a valuable asset if they are of good quality. However, the very challenges that constrain new basic education efforts reinforce the importance of their efforts. While not sufficient by itself to resolve the larger social and economic challenges faced by the world’s nations, more and better basic education is a necessary part of any resolution of their challenges.

In February 1989, the executive heads of the UNICEF, UNDP, UNESCO and the World Bank agreed to convene jointly and sponsor the world conference on ‘Education for All’. Scheduled early in the international literacy year (1990) the conference which was held in Jomtien, Thailand on March 5-9, 1990 provided an opportunity to over 2,000 educational and political leaders representing 156 nations, to voice their convictions, concerns and commitments with regard to the ‘education for all.’

Every nation should understand that there could be no lasting peace or social development without education. This is the bedrock belief on which UNESCO has built its top priority programmes to provide basic education for all by the year 2000.

All children have right to place in school. While the long-term goal should be to offer them at least a full primary education, in the interim emphasis needs to be put on this first four years, considered the necessary minimum, to ensure that children learn the essential skills and knowledge relevant to their lives.

UNESCO’s action is aimed at two essential goals increasing access to basic education while boosting the quality and relevance of that education. Education for all cannot be achieved through a simple business as ‘usual approach’. New thinking and innovative approaches are needed. The Thailand conference launched a historic initiative to make basic education available to all by the year 2000.

UNESCO maximised its impact by advising governments on how to frame education policies and programmes. Since 1953 Nepal being a member of UNESCO is getting cooperation in different fields of development to fulfil the aims and objectives of UNESCO. In 1994 a UNESCO associated School Cooperation Council was established, which collaborates with His Majesty’s Government, UN agencies, SAARC as well as NGOs involved for example in the fields of development of child welfare, education, the environment.

Other programmes include cooperation in organizing seminars, talk programmes, workshops and trainings at the national and international level, holding essay and drawing competition, photo exhibitions for the norms and ideas of UNESCO’s peace theme, encouraging competition among teachers for their professional development, updating the texts, protection of important monuments such as temples, monasteries and old buildings as well as of multilingual aspects of education.

Altogether 65 schools in UNESCO Associated School Cooperation Council and teachers, staff, students should be accountable to do their duties and responsibilities. The Council would be contributing a lot to maintaining peace and understanding and the declaration of UNESCO is quite in resonance. The preamble to its constitution says: "... Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed." UNESCO should be actively promoting and supporting the associated schools as its aim is to study the culture of other nation, promote the principles of human rights and develop education for international understanding.