Illegal wealth probe

One thing has led to another in quick succession. The Maoist people’s war has inspired the government to announce a package of reforms including radical land reform in order to make the comrades who have taken up arms more amenable to peace talks. The land reform mooted and, in particular, the accompanying freeze on land related transactions and a proposed ceiling on land holdings have the RPP and the Nepal Sadbhavana Party crying foul. They are demanding that ceilings should apply to property in general. That in turn has now moved the Nepali Congress to decide on a clamp down on illegally accumulated wealth. The party central working committee, in what can only be described as a timely and essential move, has directed the government to probe wealth amassed by those who have held high office in government since 1990, and to that end enact new laws if needed. Although general secretary Sushil Koirala has stated that land reform and probing wealth amassed improperly are two different things, it is clear the property probe is meant as a sop to those trying to thwart the land reform agenda for reasons of their own.

Nepali Congress leaders outside government have added their own voice to the need for government to act on this front. They have not been too forthcoming however on how exactly the government should go about it. This raises suspicion that the proposed probe into unaccounted wealth might be just a red herring which it should not become. Though the government should be given the benefit of the doubt for now, tall promises made and dreams woven by previous Nepali Congress governments were mere populist slogans without the political will to attain the objectives. With party backing, whether or not such backing is genuine, the Deuba government has the necessary mandate to carry out the probe and seize ill gotten wealth and bring the guilty to justice. It would be a shame if the country turns out to be utterly incapable of doing anything to curb ill gotten gain among those in the corridors of power. The main opposition CPN UML which the other day did the unprecedented in taking out a street demonstration to show its solidarity with something on the government’s agenda, can also be lined up behind any genuine anti-corruption drive.

The government’s probe task is not going to be easy. It is ambitious, and all attempts in the past to wrestle the monster of corruption to the ground have themselves run into the ground. Ms Acharya of the Congress leadership says that it is up to the government to decide whether it wants a legal probe or to work the probe mechanism into the constitutional architecture. That sounds lofty but is of little practical help. There is no denying that the government could run into rough weather over its own initiative. And in fact, Deuba may be thrown out while in the process of investigating ill gotten wealth. But that should not deter him from going full steam ahead with the probe as the people will stand by him. Party general secretary Sushil Koirala has been more helpful with assurances of full support regardless of whether someone from the party itself should be caught out. It remains to be seen if he will live up to his word. The Congress party does not have an enviable record in this regard. More than that there is the stark reality of Congress big wigs both inside and out of government being in the forefront of those on the take when it comes to graft, commissions and corruption in general. They could cause mischief for Deuba. We have already seen how the land reform agenda itself has not gone down well with some members of his own party. This is one single measure, however, that is needed towards attaining clean governance and once the post 1990-probe is over, it should be extended to the pre-1990 Panchayat days as well. For corruption in any form was as illegal then as it is now. But for a start it is best to begin with the post-1990 era.

Only revolution is civilian revolution

By Udi Tagari

Nepal is facing not one but many crises. They all distil into the Maoist uprising, which is perceived as an ominous threat to Nepali life - whatever that may be - and once solved would presumably catapult Nepal to eternal Nirvana.

Many a writer and columnist regard the Maoists as "the greatest threat to Nepal," "terrorists", a "gun-toting culture" that wish to impose a hardcore communist regime on this otherwise perfect, peaceful domain. The proponents of this view urge the government to demolish the movement.

Still others, supporting consensual, peaceful politics, wish the regime to "talk" to them.

Without going deeply into the nonexistent merits of communist regimes - whole libraries would not suffice to retell the ugly manifestations of despotism, systematic destruction of personal initiative, endless stories of human misery - one must ask: are the Maoists the great threat to Nepal?

And if so, would "talking" to them solve the issues fuelling the uprising?

For one thing, most writers are presenting the 1800-2000 victims of the 6-year-old uprising - an annual average of some 300-330 dead people - as an unprecedented, unacceptable figure and bloody proof of the movement’s murderous politics. Well, is it? Without ever having seen nor analysed the nation’s calamity statistics, it’s obviously clear that on any given year, thousands of Nepalese lose their lives via famine and malnutrition, booze-related diseases, road accidents, overflowing rivers, monsoon landslides, snakebites, food-and-water poisoning, an assortment of diseases that were declared extinct in the West some 500 years ago, etc’ - bringing life expectancy to something around 48 - 12 years less than the Iraqi average. But nobody gets excited over it, because it’s just routine, right?

But there is a specific culprit here: criminal apathy and negligence on the part of the state, or regime.

The above casualty list has a clear common denominator and represents a deeper sickness or fragility: a virtual absence of infrastructure in terms of education, transportation, communication, energy manufacturing and transmission, sustainable economy, medical resources... and much, so much more.

Other indicators, seemingly unrelated, expose malignant factors operating within this society, e g, the 200,000 or so Nepali women slaving in Indian brothels (and the 5-10,000 forced to join them every year in this unhappy vocation), returning years later, broken-spirited and/or HIV-ridden, their lives destroyed forever, to a society that treats them like lepers.

What kind of people tolerate the unobtrusive perpetuation of such a crime against humanity? To my foreign mind, that’s "murderous politics": National policies that murder not with a gun but by any other means. Somebody should be held responsible for it.

One could have a great time spoofing the unholy tripartite of democracy, corruptorship and demonarchy running this country; the greedy flawmakers who could teach a thing or two to the seasoned Byzantine veterans of Turkey and Georgia; the basic criminality of the country’s insecurity farces and low-encroachment agencies; the omni-impotence of judicial institutions and the interesting episodes at the regal bombound... but that would really be calling spade a spade and nobody’s paying me for the serious satirical effort involved... so let’s not.

And in truth, these are but the iceberg’s tip of crumbling cultural and social foundations, symptoms of the alienation within society, the widening schism between the regime and it’s constituents; between the centre and the political/social rims.

Deeper still, all this attest to the basic inability of the people to force their elected and unelected leaders to do something good for a change. Or, for that matter, to the apathy of the people, period.

From this perspective, one might even say that the Maoist uprising presents a fresh kind of mass lobbying group, albeit annoying.

Nepal is such a gorgeous land, rich in natural resources, beauty and history, and no less rich in contradictions and anomalies. Though the real enlightened one was born here, people rather worship 333 trillion fictional gods. Human life is cheaper than dirt, but slaying a cow would land you for 15 years in jail. Water is the most important natural resource yet freely splurged or given away for peanuts, while the perpetrators happily fade into the sunset, unpunished. Where so flagrant instances of self-disrespect abound, it wonders why the bully from the south gives it no respect. Where tourism can be a yearly source of billions of dollars, it is busy slaughtering the hen that lays golden eggs either through sheer stupidity (a one-month visa for 50 US$) or in the name of reinvestment: a foreigner going to Mustang must purchase a 10-day permit for outrageous 700 US$, of which a meagre 3% ever returns for local development (source: local officials in Kagbeni) because the centre is and has been systematically bleeding the Periphery dry. Small wonder world-class treasures like Changu Narayan look like shit. Where so much booze is moonshined and consumed in the villages, some women’s league is calling for a ban on the sale of alcohol. When human capital is the most important resource a country has, some 70% of the populace are illiterate and a private boarding schools cost 100-300$ a month. (so, having never read a book, the populace support a movement recklessly defining itself as "Maoists").

And, when most people get TV overdosed on Bollywood megaplots, you can sell them any fantasmagoria as real facts, while in reality there is no freedom of speech and state-and-self-censure reigns supreme.

The Maoist per se are not a problem. Any well-trained unit, equipped with modern (airborne, night-combat) weaponry, would offhandedly wipe their (unproved) military strength within a week. After all, from all available accounts, we’re talking here about a bunch of untrained, underarmed teenagers, who even at gun point would be hard pressed to recite a 5-minutes worth of coherent ideology, Marxist or otherwise (but who, it must be admitted, appear to be space invaders when compared with the sad clowns of local police, mainly skilled in the arts of extortion, corruption, and rape).

And where are the world-famous Gurkha warriors and their khukuri bayonets? Well, some one-hundred-mercenary-thousand of them are busy in neighbour Kashmir, on the payroll of India.

Are we confused already? Or busily denying harsh reality?

(The author is a free lance Israeli journalist)

(To be concluded)

Where history fails

By Birodh Pandey

When it comes to doing something constructive for society or a nation as a whole, we tie our hands and simply walk away. But when it comes to provoking others, chatting and playing cards in the chautaras or playing carom-board beside the teashop we race for it.

In the twentieth century our leaders struggled to identify themselves as people from the land of Lord Buddha, Mount Everest and the bravest of them all, the Gurkhas. But with the dawn of the twenty-first century we face an acute shortage of such bravery and require a different identity altogether. Well why not identify ourselves as people with plenty of time with hands tied? That’s why not much argument is raised against periodic Nepal Bandhas. After all we simply ignore work or keep on rescheduling it for the next day which never comes.

In India celebrity film stars and cricket players are popular and in Nepal, though much criticized, politician are most popular. When any politician holds the mike at Tudhikhel thousands rush to hear the so-called costly speech leaving behind their precious, unfinished tasks.

Well, dear politicians, please let your be lips tied during the prime hours of the monsoon, as the paddy fields will otherwise be left vacant. Months ago I saw two foreigners picking up litter from the street of Banepa. First I thought they were carrying out some study regarding waste chemistry. But later I discovered that they were volunteers from Banepa based Scheer Memorial Hospital and were trying to be an example to their Nepalese counterparts and teach environmental ethics. The two ladies carried out their work while Nepalese stared in amazement.

The next problem we are heading into comes from our fragile economy. A politician or an artist wants his basic medical treatment done abroad with the government’s financial support, while fellow countrymen in Humla and Jumla die of hunger. Contrary to what John F. Kennedy said nearly a century back: "Don’t ask what your country can do for you but ask what you can do for your country", we continue to believe just the opposite: state shall provide everything and we simply need to
stretch out our hands.

In the past we did a lot of work on our own. But now we have become spoon-fed and simply ignoring our potential wait for donor agency support. While trekking through one of the villages of Kaski district I saw a chautara built with Japanese assistance. It’s a real shame that chautaras are native to us and we seek others assistance for building them. Where has all our effort and craftsmanship gone that
created the finest temples of Panauti and Bhaktapur?

Our potential has all been engulfed by laziness and the remaining temples too need renovation by donor countries.

In the past people were tied to a single group for any developmental effort, and community based programs were there. But now they have all disappeared and people are driven by selfish desire and their own interest. One of the other reasons for our lack of concern towards the nation is that we lack patriotism. We have never been under any foreign sovereignty, whereas the big brother was under British rule and now their Independence Day is more than a religious festival.

Next problem is we are confused in the name of modernization. A city dweller says he’s modern in his thoughts for tuning into western trash completely forgetting his melodies native songs and culture. Who knows one day we will be tagged as a new tribe if cultural erosion continues and we adopt an alien culture. Let’s be genuine and above all talk less and do more…

Attaining development vision for Nepal

By T R Basyal

The past initiatives meant for development in Nepal have produced mixed results. The economic achievements realized so far are insufficient to provide fundamental breakthroughs required to transform the country from the status of a least developed country to at least the lower rung of a middle-income developing country status. During the last 37 years (1964/65-2000/01), the average annual economic growth rate has been merely 3.8 percent. The agriculture sector is growing by 3.1 percent and the non-agriculture sector by 4.6 percent. With the population growing at an annual rate of 2.3 percent during the period, the per capita income growth could barely average 1.5 percent. Given such a weak performance of the economy, with its impact felt both in economic and non-economic lives of the nation, attaining a higher income growth in a sustained way, is the most important development exercise currently facing the country. The growth projections for the future, however, portray that climbing the development ladder will indeed be a challenging task.

With the projection of the population growth at 2 percent and the economic growth at 5 percent for the next 42 years, the per capita income in 2043 AD will be $767. This income level is already below the level ($820) attained by Sri Lanka, a SAARC member country. With the scenario of population growth at 2 percent and the economic growth of 7 percent during the next 42 years, the per capita income in 2043 will be $1760. If the economic growth rate rises to an average of 8 percent, the per capita income in 2043 will be $2650. This will be $3976 with 9 percent growth and $ 5942 with 10 percent growth. Hence, accelerating the economic growth constitutes the most crucial strategy to realize the development vision for the country. At the same time, the population control measures need to be given top priority as the declining population growth rate would substantially contribute to enhancing the economic growth and per capita income growth.

Higher investment for accumulation of physical and human capital is a prerequisite to sustain a growth. Education policies that focus on primary and secondary schools will rapidly increase skill labour force. High and rising endowment of human capital built on universal and secondary education will essentially contribute to better record of growth. Consistently high rates of investment for a long period of time including, in particular, very high rates of private investment, tell a large part of the growth story. The global experience shows that the rapidly growing private domestic investment and
human capital account for roughly two-third of the growth.

One-third of the growth attributes to improve productivity. Such superior productivity performance comes from the success at allocating capital to high-yielding investments and at catching up technologically to the advanced economies. Making labour markets flexible, developing the capital markets, promoting specific industries, pushing up exports, and increasing the openness to foreign technology to compete in the rapidly changing world economy are vital for capital growth, efficient allocation of resources and productivity enhancement.

Better macroeconomic management and performance are an essential framework for increased private investment and tapping the productive potentiality and competitive strength of the economy. Providing a stable macroeconomic environment (stability in price, interest rate and exchange rate) and a reliable legal framework for promoting domestic and international competition are essential. Macroeconomic stability coupled with high shares of international trade in GDP and strong competition among firms will lead to a higher growth.

Sound financial policy helps expedite the development process. A policy to increase the integrity of the financial system, and to make it to more accessible to the all types of savers and borrowers, raises the level of domestic financial savings which, combined with sustained high investment levels, contributes to superior accumulation of physical and human capital. A policy that encourages a stable and secure financial system and also discourages distortion in the system is vital to the sustained high level growth.

The price system should be allowed to play its logical role in mobilization and allocation of resources. Price distortion need to be kept within a reasonable bound. Keeping the economy open to international trade and reducing the price controls and other rigidities will lead to a low relative price distortion. Any attempt to guide resource allocation with non-market mechanisms generally fails to improve economic performance. To ensure efficiency, pragmatism and sustainability of the development, government policy and action need to be based on economic fundamentals rather than populist considerations.

The role of the government should be catalytic to growth. The market-friendly strategy with government’s efforts focused on ensuring adequate investment in people-education-health, providing a competitive climate for private enterprise, and maintaining a stable macroeconomy will all lead to a higher growth. Government interventions that emphasize efficient public-private investments contribute to the economic development. For creating a business-friendly environment, government-private sector cooperation should be ensured through arranging the consultation councils between the government and the private sector. Economic development will be largely facilitated through such consultative cooperation.

Efficient technocracies, shielded from political pressure, that devise and implement sound interventions are crucial for economic growth. Selective government interventions, to succeed, must be disciplined by competition via either markets or contests among firms and between government and the private sector. As economic contests, like all other contests, require competent and impartial referees, viz., strong institutions, a high-quality civil service that has the capacity to monitor performance and is insulated from political interference is essential to contest-based competition. Of course, a high-quality civil service also augments the government’s ability to design and implement other related policies. More effective system of public administration will contribute to better record of growth. If implemented properly, all these measures would lead to an expedited, all-round development of Nepal. The role of dedicated and dynamic political leadership would be critical to foster such an environment of socio-economic transformation.