Ensure human development

The Human Development report prepared by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is by no means a perfect document. It does give a fairly accurate account of the state of affairs in various sectors; whether they are based on western concepts or our own values. The fact that Nepal ranks 144th among those whose Human Development Index (HDI) the UNDP has prepared is neither surprising nor elating. We could not have expected anything better with the series of our governments really not governing but busy holding on to the reins of power and, therefore, the purse strings of government coffers.

Human development is never possible without two fundamental factors reaching the common man. One is education and the other is health services. Even in these two vital areas, politics is rife. Teachers, employed on the basis of their political beliefs, are more busy indoctrinating students than helping them to think freely and logically for themselves. The health sector is no better. With this kind of government attitude, it would have been surprising to see an improvement in our HDI. Even the fact that Nepal’s HDI stood where it was the previous year is no mean achievement. This HDI of South Asian countries in general has not been very encouraging but countries like Sri Lanka whose HDI is in the eighties have indeed done better.

The theme of this year’s HD Report is "Human Rights and Human development", a theme that is all encompassing. In this regard, the picture presented of Nepal should be an eye opener to political leaders both inside and outside the government. Like in other developing countries, the gap between the rich and poor is increasing despite the magic "mantra" of globalisation and free market economy. The 20 percent rich in Nepal, probably not all of them Nepalese, possess over 44 percent of the nation’s wealth while the poorest 30 percent have to make do with just over 7 percent.

The clear signal to the government and all political parties is surely that it should address this problem with a sense of war-like urgency. Otherwise, the sense of alienation among the poor will continue to increase and they will continue to be deprived of essential services by the government and other concerned authorities. HDR will lose its relevance if it is unable to propel governments to do their utmost to improve the status of human beings all over the world. In cases like that of Nepal whose position in the index is none too enviable, the task of the government and other organisations is even more difficult and challenging because of topography, lack of infrastructures and, above all, lack of firm political will. But this is a challenge any government worthier than its name must take up.

Restructuring and privatization of RNAC

By Ganga B Shrestha

Background: This year Royal Nepal Airlines (RNAC) is celebrating its 42nd anniversary next month on 1st July, 2000. The first decades of its existence were periods of growth, development and profitability. The last decade, however has been a time of deterioration and decline in almost all respects. At this hour, the total morale of employees is at the lowest level due to uncertainty of the National Flag Carrier’s future. The situation has now sunk to a point where there is a serious risk that RNAC could soon have to cease operations altogether.

The causes of this situation are well known in the company and outside. All the employees of RNAC as well as the tourism related industry people (hotels, travel agencies, domestic airlines, etc) have blamed the continual ‘political interference’ in the day to day running of the company, as for example, issues concerning aircraft acquisition and disposal, selection of GSAs, employment favours, unnecessary recruitment etc. The most undermining interference of all, however, has been the continual change of top management (including at the level of department/sectional heads) and board members. With each change of its minister as well as government, has come a new managing director, board and department head. In the past decade there have been so many changes that even its personnel department could not maintain its proper records.

Despite all these problems neither government/management nor the employees/industry people seem to have been able to find the will and courage to halt and reverse the trend in order to save it from collapsing. As the fortunes of RNAC worsened, so everybody now, has been advocating restructuring and privatization as a remedy to the underlying malaise.

Why privatize? The objectives of privatization and the relative importance of each objective can differ from one airline to another. Many airlines declared objectives for privatization falls within the following set of objectives.

- increase productive efficiency (optimum utilisation of aircraft, maintaining reliability and punctuality, efficient service, etc)

- improve service or produce quality and enhance customer service levels

- develop and improve domestic capital market capacity

- use domestic and foreign private funds to replace or modernize old assets (aircraft/equipment)

- reduce role of the government (political/bureaucratic interferences)

- raise public revenues and reduce public spending

- create real job opportunities

- promote wider share ownership of national wealth (through participation of industry people, general public etc)

- expose state owned companies to market forces

- increase net profit

Options for restructuring and privatization of RNAC: The essential first step in any restructuring plan for RNAC must be the involvement of a strong strategic airline partner--the financial investors alone would not be sufficient ideally, this should be done on a basis of a management contract and leased aircraft in exchange for a major percent of share-holding in RNAC by the partner carrier.

For RNAC to recover and prosper, the following interrelated actions must be taken:

i) it must find a strategic airline partner that can bring the additional aircraft, new marketing technology and new management skills needed.

ii) the government must put the company beyond the day to day reach of politicians and allow its management and Board to exercise normal operating control unhindered.

iii) encourage private airlines to begin operating international regional flights as a spur to RNAC for improvement as well as preparation of potential replacement airlines in case RNAC goes out of business.

Involvement of a powerful partner in the day to day running of RNAC will bring new management discipline, marketing expertise and, most importantly, access to a world wide sales and distribution network. It will also act as a counter balance to political interference.

Preparation for privatization: Declaration of an intent only to privatize RNAC will not be sufficient to ensure success. Lots of preparatory work also needed to be done to ready the company for sale. Potential investors must be convinced that any shares they buy will have a good chance of increasing in value. The main assets of RNAC are its golden routes, traffic rights, the cheap/trained/experienced human resources and of course, its fleets, though they are very old and absolute.

At present RNAC’s formal relationships will other airlines are limited to interline agreement only. RNAC now must find an airline partner with international presence and capable of providing a global distribution sales network. Past experiences with Air France, Lufthansa and British Airways have all been disappointing and there was a clash of business cultures also, while looking for the strategic partner, RNAC should try to find an interested airline in South East Asia or in Gulf region (with similar work cultures) who has surplus aircraft capacity and an interest in acquiring additional traffic rights into Europe and Asia.

Political commitment: RNAC is trapped in a vicious circle. Privatization is seen as the means of putting the company beyond political interference and allowing normal management authority and discipline to be restored. On the other hand, it will be impossible to attract until such interference has been stopped.

To break out this trap will require a political commitment by both government and opposition parties to cease using RNAC issues for political purposes.

Success story of privatization: During the period between 1985 to 1992 many international airlines were privatized in Europe and Asia including TG, SQ, MAS, JAL. A study done by Kuwait Institute For Scientific Research (KISR) on the performance changes in 10 selected privatized airlines showed a number of interesting results which are as follows:

- sales or revenues increased significantly

- net income increased slightly to moderately

- total assets increased significantly

- number of employees increased slightly to moderately

- capital expenditures increased significantly

- dividends increased moderately to significantly

For the few airlines who have been privatized for more than 10 years, most of the performance indicators are better than those presented above.

In our SAARC region, even though very lately realised, Air Lanka has privatized just few years back. Now, Air India, Indian Airlines, Pakistan International Airlines and Biman Bangladesh Airlines are in the process of privatization. Though HMG/Nepal had decided to privatize RNAC in early 80s when first Boeing 757 was inducted into its fleets. But, unfortunately nothing was done even after two decades of HMG’s decision due to strong vested interests against such a move.

If His Majesty’s Government of Nepal does not act soon to put the National Flag Carrier "Royal Nepal Airlines" back on an economically viable footing, the commercial and financial situation of the company could slide to a point where recovery is not longer possible--with or without privatization.

A sincere devotion to mother

By Keshab Raj Acharya

The mother died yesterday. She was aged and had already crossed many bridges. She was slouching, as well as we all are, towards the grave yard, if you believe, for her rebirth. Mother is mother. How intolerable it is to bear the sore pain of mother’s sad demise. Her only one son was the apple-pie of her eye. She was the soul of her son, his life, his story of pathos and bathos. He was really the appendage of her body. None could express in words how tightly the knot of love and affection between them was made. Mother’ frequent blessings were the successful fruitions of his whole endeavours.

Though, he was conscious of death, he had no time to think enough of his mother’s weakening bodily comforts. Whatever might be the case, she passed away yesterday morning.

Maybe for she first time the feeling of revenge and hatred filled his bosom. He could not strive to control them allowing himself to be borne away by the stream. He bent his head towards injury and death.

When he thought of his dear mother of her love, the care for him, he dashed his head on the ground. A gush of tears somewhat soothed him. But again when he reflected that the death had spurned to desecrate even him, anger returned; a rage of anger shrouded him. Unable to injure anything human, he turned his fury towards inanimate objects.

He knew that he had to carry the pyre for cremation. The place for cremation was not far but the suffering he endured intense. The nearer he approached the cemetery, the more deeply did he feel the spirit of the revenge enkindled in his heart.

After putting the dead body aside on the bank of the river for funeral, he still rolled down the gush of tears from his eyes. Every word that he spoke in allusion caused his lips to quiver and his heart to palpitate. He thought himself to be miserable spectacle of wretched humanity, pitiable to others and intolerable to himself.

For an instant, his clothes were shaken off. He looked around him with a free and lofty spirit, but iron had eaten into his flesh and he sank again trembling, hopeless into his deceptive miserable self. All were near him to dissipate the gloom and relieve him from the sickening oppression of the most terrible reveries.

Now, he reached the river to bathe for the redemption of whole commitment he had made for his mother’s sake. No sooner he took some water in his palm than he grinned pitifully. A fouling smell of disgusting semisolid materials prevailed the whole milieu. His nerves were agitated and his eyes inflamed by watching the contaminated dingy holy water. He murmured and challenged the ruler forgetting all his duties he had to perform there. The whole motherly love transformed into the rigorous threat that he made against the state affairs. The dubious megalomania now rooted at the core of his heart as he entirely forgot the first duty to raise a ladder towards the empyrean for his deceased mother to stop on. After all how great and magnanimous he was since he was the only chamberlain to make such a commitment against the rulers challenging them of their affairs.

Should public support Maoist action ?

The Kathmandu Post and Mercantile Communications conducted a survey on "Do you think Nepalese police enjoy public support on their action against Maoists?" on the Net last week. Of the total 186 respondents, fifty nine percent said "No", thirty four percent said "Yes" and the rest said "they did not know".

We regret the inconvenience, if any that may be caused on account of the non-mention of original names by some respondents.

Poor police personnel are not getting much public sympathy since they become puppets in the hands of politicians. Why should public support them when they torture, arrest and even kill innocent women, children and villagers? Police have lost morale because they do not get public support in many parts of the country. The public know this fact, so they are indirectly behind the Maoists, who at least won’t bother as long as they are unharmed. The present police force is useless in dealing not only with Maoists but also with other simple activities related to social security.

- Surendra R Devkota

Are police used for maintaining law and order or fighting against uprisings ? Police personnel are not the army nor are they trained to fight guerrilla wars. But I do not feel pity on the Nepali police force. They can (and should) be used to do any kind of job.

- Damachi

Of course, people are supporting the police in their endeavour. Moreover, the bloody incidents in the last few days have further strengthened the sympathy of people towards the police.

- Prabin Acharya

First of all, police should maintain law and order. I do not think people (illiterate) are supporting police action. They have misused their authority against innocent people. But one thing is sure it has become really difficult to distinguish who is at fault between the police and Maoists.

- Sudesh

I think people should support these police personnel because they are fighting the battle to save the constitution and the basic rights of the people. There are corrupt people in every sector, not only in police force. But those losing their life are poor people who have joined police force just to feed their families. Maoists are killing them. They have destroyed properties of Surya Tobacco and Palmolive. What have they achieved? These companies will claim insurance from the government and get more than they actually invested. Just wait and see they will strike the Kaligandaki project too. Gradually, they will destroy public properties only.

- Markanne

Police who have their political masters are posted at Birgunj customs, Tribhuvan International Airport, Khasa, etc where they earn money every day. Do you know who are the police forced to go to battle and die? They are the poor police who do not have any public support. This is one of the reasons the police have failed to fight the battle against Maoists.

- Kamal

Whenever a house experiences bad time, the servant of the house acts like the boss. As long as every child of this country is not well educated, the country will be forced to literally bleed because the servant is not educated. The majority of children do not get opportunity to attend schools. The NC led government cannot claim that it has done something for them. What it has done is amassed enough wealth to educate their children in the US. Maoists are none other than the parents of the uneducated children. Do you think that police should protect the property of those who have amassed public wealth? The answer is No. So, how can you tell undereducated parents to support police when they are fighting for their rights?

- Parent

The role of the Nepali police is to serve the interest of the Nepali Congress. In the last decade alone, majority of the police cadets were NC workers, they have all served the party before entering the police force. They are poorly trained as appointments are not based on merit. The formation of Commando Police Force is a new way to terrorize the public. For the Nepal Police to gain the public sympathy, they must act independently and they must think.

- Sanam

I think police should enjoy the public support but it is them who are crushed between public and Maoists as it is very difficult for them to distinguish between Maoists and public, so they are not getting support from the public. It will be fortunate if they will get support from the public.

- Sandhya

The police force does not have clear guidance and command for controlling Maoist activities. They do not carry deep analysis and investigation of the incidents. They do not have clear vision and strategy and they have very poor information about Maoists. If they follow clear, transparent policy, they can get immense public support.

- Rajan Singh

Nepal police should work together and think what is right and what is wrong, what is legal and what is illegal, what is yes and what is no, what is plus and what is minus, and what is good and what is bad ? I read, saw and found most top level police personnel have misused their responsibility, accountability and authority. We talk about the Maoists who are people like us fighting for the two square meals. They are looking for a solution but police personnel have been giving them bullets, boots and sticks instead of dialogue, table and carrot. I think Nepalese police can never enjoy public support on their action against Maoists.

- Locham L Shrestha