Loan pact

The government signed a multi- billion rupee deal with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) known as the Poverty Reduction Partnership Agreement (PRPA) the other day. The agreement aims to lessen the existing rate of poverty by ten percent in a period of fifteen years. Such a bilateral accord on poverty alleviation was not unexpected since the government had been eagerly looking for a long time for more financial assistance for its poverty reduction programme. Besides, Nepali political leaders have rarely shown any hesitation in borrowing from any international financial institution. This is the main reason the country has to allocate 15 percent of its annual budget just to pay interest of its external debt. Another 15 percent goes for repayment of principal. Borrowings so far from international financial institutions have been meant to cover the range of development activity from extension of electricity and telephones, road construction and blacktopping to poverty eradication in general. There is not a single sector for which the government has mobilized development funding from internal resources. The country remains entirely dependent on foreign loans for its developmental hopes.

The ADB is going to provide about 306 million US dollars for the PRPA within the next three years in addition to four million dollars for technical assistance. This, as claimed by the Finance Minister, would give due importance to sustainable poverty reduction. But while the Finance Minister has praised the agreement as an understanding between the government and the ADB he has not been forthcoming about the specific areas the government would focus on while dealing with poverty. If the way the government has set about achieving the target of poverty reduction is anything to go by, only a handful of people, those who are in power, will benefit from PRPA. The fact is the government has yet to outlined specific and effective strategy to fight poverty. As a result, the rate of poverty, which stood at 40 percent a decade ago, has increased to over 52 percent. Rural folks continue under abject poverty for the lack of education, health and employment.

After decades of development effort Nepal has yet to make sufficient strides in putting in place the basics needed for poverty alleviation. It has not generated substantial employment, and neither has it provided formal education to all children nor ensured good governance. Half the population has no access to primary health care. The development of human resources should have been taken as the key to poverty reduction. Unfortunately, that has never been realized even after a decade of the poverty reduction programme. Meanwhile, "casteism" that has emerged after the restoration of democracy has become a new challenge to development. The politicians have often misdirected state funds at cost to the country. In the absence of internal resources mobilisation, the country has been reeling under external debt. If the government does not effectively utilize this new loan or fails to achieve the target of poverty reduction, this country might only sink deeper into the debt trap. The government must now be more focused in its measures against poverty, and the focus should be on the rural poor. It must also mobilize internal resources and must observe the laws more effectively.

Failure in good governance

By Prof Soorya Lal Amatya

The political movement launched with the joint effort of the Nepali Congress and the Communist parties in 1990 was successful in dissolving the partyless Panchayat political system and established multi-party democratic system.

The democratic constitution of 1990 was drafted by a commission of experts and it was the product of understanding between the Nepali Congress, the Communist parties and the Royal Palace. The pivotal aspect of the 1990 constitution is that the sovereignty of the country is vested in the people. Under it the legally elected representatives of the people can amend the Constitution by a two-thirds majority. It has stressed human rights, constitutional monarchy and a multi-party democratic parliamentary system. These, in fact, are the corner stones of the constitution specified in the preamble, and cannot be amended. The constitution has also incorporated the spirit of checks and balance among the executive, legislature and judiciary.

When we view the constitution of 1990 theoretically, it was well drafted and has all the essential ingredients of a multi-party democratic system. The late former PM Manmohan Adhikari rightly commented that the constitution had very good provisions but it failed to deliver. He was obviously referring to the failure of successive elected governments in Nepal to provide social, political and economic justice to the people. Quite a number of the important executive decisions of the government were declared unlawful by the Supreme Court. The Tanakpur agreement can be cited as one example. The Supreme Court ruled recently that the constituency development fund of one million rupees needed to be spent on the basis of parliamentary acts and regulations. The executive order in this context was not in conformity with the spirit of the constitution. The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority has also taken up the cases of corruption. The RNAC agreements with Lauda Air and the Southwest China Airline can be cited as glaring examples.

During the last twelve years the elected governments have failed miserably to provide good governance in the country. Corruption has been rampant at all the ministries and departments. Recently, weekly newspapers have published a series of cases of misuse of development funds and interestingly the annual report of the Auditor General for the last fiscal year has mentioned irregularities in budgetary funds to the extent of Rs 71.7 billion. A substantial amount totalling Rs 17.36 billion had to be recovered as revenue in the fiscal year 2000-2001. The report has also suggested that all the foreign loans from bilateral and multilateral agencies need to be brought under the purview of the Auditor General’s office and properly audited. The total foreign bilateral and multilateral loan drawn so far has reached a whopping amount of Rs 194 billion. At present there is no reliable mechanism for auditing of such loans. So there is widespread misuse and irregularity by the government and government agencies. Even the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Taranath Ranabhat, remarked in his address at a public meeting in Kathmandu that all the ministers take bribes through the administrative staff of the ministries concerned. None of the ministers and government spokesmen have so far countered the statement of the speaker. The appointment of the executive managers and officers at public corporations and institutions has been marked by controversy. There were quite a number of cases in which the Supreme Court reversed the governments appointments. The verdict of the Supreme Court in case of Dr Tilak Rawal as the governor of Nepal Rastra Bank has been a unique example. Political interventions in the appointment of officials at different levels and in the decision making process have been quite frequent. In fact, the executive officers were not given a free hand in the decision making and the operation and management of public enterprises, educational institutions and government financial institutions. Often vehicles, equipment and facilities are misused by ministers and their personal assistants. As a consequence, all the public enterprises have been incurring heavy losses and ultimately the government has had to provide financial supports in running these enterprises.

The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority had in a number of cases implicated the ministers but the government did not take any action against them. Rather, they were pampered because of their blind allegiance to the prime minister and the party. As such, government decisions and functioning have not been transparent.

In spite of government efforts and substantial investment of funds, the population growth rate has not been restrained and it is still growing by about 2.4 per cent per annum. A large percentage of the people in the country are unemployed and under employed. Quite a proportion of the population is below the poverty line. The National Planning Commission had given top priority to poverty alleviation in the ninth plan and the target was to reduce poverty from 42 to 32 per cent by the end of the ninth plan. The NPC has already conceded that the poverty alleviation will be from 42 to 38 per cent only. But a leading economist has challenged even this figure of 38 percent and has commented that there is no basis for accepting it. The educational, health, banking, and other institutions were highly politicized and political intervention in all government and non-government institutions became been a common phenomenon.

Even the supreme leader for the Movement of Restoration of Democracy of 1990, the late Ganesh Man Singh, was not happy with the functioning of the government and the party. He became so much frustrated that ultimately he left the Nepali Congress and commented in seriousness that the multi-party democratic system was at the intensive care unit (ICU) stage. In the opinion of independent intellectuals of the country, the tyrannical misrule of the government, widespread corruption, unemployment, negligence in terms of allocation of development funds to the remote districts of the Midwestern and Far-western Development Regions, marginalization of small political parties by the ruling as well as main opposition parties in the first elected House of Representatives since 1990 and the deteriorating economic situation had stimulated the emergence of the Maoist movement in the country. The people are highly frustrated due to poor governance, rampant corruption, insecurity of life and property, the inconsistency of government policies and the deteriorating economic situation.

Parlour parody

By Vidwata Bahety

Thanks to the ardent desire of each of the feminine gender (age no bar) to look beautiful very few escape the pull to visit beauty saloons. What more don’t the mushrooming beauty parlours in every nook and corner of the city seem to telltale? In case you are wondering what it is like when women huddle together, they "indulge in gossip".

As an avid listener of the continuous chitchat of the woman folk, I couldn’t resist the temptation to escort my aunt to her trip to the parlour. As I accompanied my aunt and her two daughters I was really looking forward to some hot tittle-tattle, the kind that is so unique to beauty saloons only.

As soon as we step into the parlour, the lady in position (who else but the beautician) welcomes us with a shower of questions: "You have come after such a long time. What have you been doing?" To all this my aunt rattles off an answer already rehearsed in advance. The lady in position seems to be busy with some fat clients on the hot seats. And as if it were to match up with the paranormal tune of the scissors going snip and snap, her non-stop chatter runs in the background (or is this the foreground?) to keep everyone amused.

As we take our seats and settle down, my eyes are more on one of the subjects of the beautician than on the magazine on my lap. The subject must be around 60, I assume rather intelligently. Despite the jet-black hair, which is, now piled up on top of her head there lay the beautiful silver root of the tresses that gave away her true age! The lady in command tries hard to settle down the subject unnerved by my continuous ogling. "Aunt all you need is to get your hair shampooed of and then you’ll have the shine and the bounce. Ah! It’s time you got your facial done too. You’ll look lovely then". This must be perhaps the biggest of lie the lady in position has just told without even winking (I bet she must have had the greatest of temptations to do so).

"So how is Binaya doing? Isn’t he planning to get married? Well you need to find a suitable girl too. I have this girl in mind and blah blah blah.."

Aha! Now you can see we don’t need a matrimonial column any more. Actually why bother when you can fix a match without as much effort as just giving the control of the angular position of your head to the Lady in position. The subject in turn lets off her own huge list of qualities for the girl. Wow! I wonder if that was to be a description of a prospective daughter in law or much of a portrayal of a coveted commercial product recently launched in the market.

With a sudden quick move the subject rises up, she’s getting late for her "Kitti". The lady smiles that killer’s smile before she makes you pay through your nose. No soon after waving a goodbye she turns to us next,"Hair cut she asks?" No I’ve come for manicure. The girls need to have their hair trimmed. Safely seated I continue to turn the pages of the magazine waiting anxiously for the Lady to throw some light on the history of the visitor who just left. Ladies particularly of this clan (beauticians not to take it very personally!) are sugar lipped till the customer leaves. And the moment the subject is out of sight she begins to slash her as to my expectations. Juicy details are thrown in deliberately to make the story more interesting (read spicy) than the cover story of the Time or the Newsweek, of which I happen to be a devoted reader. I’d rather rush now because it is my turn to get into the hot seat next with the head tilted in queer position and go through some arcane ritual... Goodbye!

Jamboree may lead to dissolution

By Basanta Lohani

A lawyer friend of mine made a terse but forceful remark the other day while describing the functioning of the present government. He said: ‘you know how the institutions are made to function now?’ Without waiting for my response, pat came his answer: ‘error or omission or unless otherwise agreed upon, every mission has commission these days.’ I was dumbstruck. More so when I tired to relate his remark to prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba’s pre Dassai cabinet expansion on October 18 into a jamboree. Yes, It is indeed a jamboree for merry making. Given the governing realities of what my friend described, it then extends further from merry making to money making that proportionately will further increase the hardship of the people. This cabinet is a unique blend of aptitude from Khum Bahadur to Dil Bahadur and Bal Bahadur to Birendra Kanudiya

Do we need a forty-one-member contingent to run the government? The answer is no by all counts except for Deuba’s ingenuity that the greater the number, the longer will be the prime minister’s life. He is, in fact, apologetic to other members of the parliament that he could not accommodate them. His tone indicates that probably he would have been very happy if he could have upsized his cabinet to fifty-seven, instead of the present forty-one so that his position as leader of the congress parliamentary party would be unchallenged so long as Congress rules in the remaining term. But he has failed to learn any lesson from his first term when the three party coalition government that he headed from September 12, 1995 to March 12, 1997 collapsed because two of his own party MPs decided to remain absent in the confidence vote disobeying the party whip. Our parliament was also witness when a minister sat in the opposition benches to topple his own party’s government.

Deuba was remarkable in terms of bringing multiple distortions. This was seen in his first term when he was too willing to compromise on anything so long as that increased his prime ministerial life. Be it bringing the Pajero culture or sending MPs to Bangkok for fake medical treatment with Taxpayer’s money or just buying arms from the Army’s welfare fund. By the time he lost this game of numbers despite all these and, thus, his premiership, he had added enough distortions to pluralistic democratic governance. It certainly was one leap forward towards devouring the sensibility of the nation. This ‘infinite flexibility’ is perhaps his strength in terms of hastening the crisis. Flexibility with no vision for the country, no direction and just shambling along amidst plenty of vacillation then becomes the perfect recipe for hastening the crisis.

This second time for him is even more confusing because bad governance in continuity has eaten up much of the institutional capability and, thus, the cushion of the prime minister. This confusion is looming large. The prime minister showed his first uncanny ability when the cabinet he formed on July 16 gave full representation to the tainted faces that people long recognized as corrupt. The irony was he then spoke of his full determination to control corruption. It became something like having cats to guard over the milk. His so-called revolutionary land reform program has become the best example of ad-hocism so far. The lack of vision and homework has made a mess of it reducing the revolutionary part to rhetoric and reform to confusion. What is left now will be further decreased agricultural productivity. The dialogue with the Maoists is drifting towards perhaps yet another round of armed confrontation, even if not immediately because of the external factors, although they are at the receiving end now.

Morning did show the day. This time it is afternoon that perhaps is showing the night when one views how Deuba reorganized his cabinet into a jamboree. The prime minister is never tired of releasing books and utilizing such occasions in selling dreams of good governance to the people. But the government meticulously planned not to put through any anti-corruption bills in the 20th session of parliament that was prorogued on October 18. Hom Nath Dahal who resigned over this matter from the chairmanship of the Parliamentary State Affairs Committee next day accused the government of its mala fide design and dilly-dallying tactics. The concerned minister found it fit not to attend parliament at the time of discussions on the bill because he had to meet an ambassador.

Earlier the prime minister was begging the MPs to reconsider the decision of the Public Account Committee that stopped the purchase of a super puma helicopter that the government wanted to buy ‘urgently’ in the pretext of VVIP use when the army has two such helicopters on operation. The typical style that has remained in vogue is sell the ones in use at scrap value and buy new ones, harvesting huge commission both ways. RNAC sold two of its Boeing in a similar way in 1993 for leasing aircraft. One does not need to go through even the International Transparency report to understand these types of things going on in Nepal with impunity. In his earlier tenure, it was arms without any budget and this time it’s for helicopters without budget even if it means slashing the development budget. This is how such purchases get priority over social welfare works.

The day the house was prorogued, our prime minister found it convenient to expand his 13-member cabinet into a jumbo one. It is just a jamboree for Dassai merry making, and considering the types of faces and how corruption is going unabated with total impunity, it is for money making as well under the rhetoric of good governance and well being of the people. In plain and simple terms, it is a hilarious act of distributing cabinet berths like lollipops to kids pushing and pulling each other for the same all at the cost of the nation. On the basis of the reports of the Administrative Reform Commission 1992 and the Administrative Reform Team 2000, and also under pressure from donors, Girija Prasad Koirala, as fourth time prime minister, had reduced the ministries a year and half ago from 26 to 21. The reports had recommended bringing the numbers down to less than twenty.

As if the running of the government were like a child’s play, the prime minister became desperate to increase the number of ministries again to twenty five because he had to distribute full cabinet berths to those who were scratching his back. This is the ball game of good governance. When he failed in it, he went up to forty-one distributing his Dassai prizes. The president of the ruling party, Girija Prasad Koirala, has rightly expressed his indignation calling the cabinet expansion ‘unmanageable’. His plan for limiting the number is in the right direction. He said: "We will discuss about the bill that will allow the governing party to include only 10 per cent of the 205 law makers in cabinet." Next Day on October 21, our prime minister got up from his sleep to find out that he too needed to express his concern about the size of his own cabinet. He did so the Nepali Congress Parliamentary Party meeting and blamed the lack of guidelines for such expansion. Did he expect the guidelines in the constitution? The country simply cannot function like this. Deuba’s jamboree for merry making and money making is likely to lead to not just the collapse of the government as happened in 1997 but even to the dissolution of parliament.