Role of private sector in Tenth Plan underscored
PRSP would top the agenda in NDF meet

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KATHMANDU, Jan 22: In a series of pre-NDF (Nepal Development Forum) consultation meetings, experts today discussed the role of private sector in the Tenth Plan and Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), which the government is going to put as its main agenda in the upcoming NDF meet.

Most of the speakers expressed the views that weak implementation of policies and programmes related with ensuring greater participation of private sector has been a prime factor for less than expected outcomes.

They also stressed that government should be more serious to speed up current pace of privatization, which is one of the important processes to ensure greater private sector involvement.

"The main aim of the Tenth Plan to reduce poverty can only be achieved through creating more employment, which is only possible with the rapid development of private sector," they stressed.

Presenting a paper, Bhanu P Archarya, secretary at the ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies said that despite increasing role of private sector in industrial activities, it still needs to enhance capacity to cope with the rising competition in the global market.

He also mentioned that the narrow capital base, huge spread rate between the lending and deposit rates, heavy concentration of financial institutions on the urban areas are the main problems of the current financial sector reform.

He stressed on the need to initiate second financial sector reform process immediately, which should be concentrate on enhancing institutional capabilities of both the private and public sectors.

Dr Bimal P Koirala secretary at the Finance Ministry, presenting a paper said that boosting privatization has been essential to minimize soaring government financial burden. "It is an important part to expedite liberalization and a way to boost private capital in the industrial development," he observed.

However, he said that though the public sector reform is expensive, the government should think of initiating inexpensive reform in PEs to make it attractive to the private sector.

Commenting on the papers, Dr Shankar Sharma, Member of National Planning Commission, emphasized to correct weak implementation of polices to ensure greater participation of private sector. He also underlined the need to correct some contradiction on the regulations related with private sector and to reduce transaction cost by removing bureaucratic hassles.

Dr Yuba Raj Khatiwada, Chairman of Management Association Nepal emphasized the need of prioritization of the privatization process to improve the outcomes. He also said that the mistakes witnessed in previous privatization process should be immediately corrected.

Jhala Nath Khanal, Leader of main opposition CPN-UML said that most of the government policies have failed to incorporate the changes being seen in the global era. "Lack of effective vision of development is the main cause poor performance of the private sector," he said.

Binod Bahadur Shrestha, second vice-president of Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry expressed his dissatisfaction over the recent government decisions on which private sector were not properly consulted.

He urged the government to improve transparency, implementation records and to stop frequent changes in the rules and regulations to encourage the private sector.

Decentralisation, good governance stressed

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KATHMANDU, Jan 22: Experts, policy makers and the representatives of the donor community have asked the government to set specific priority and be focused while implementing the development plans and strategies.

Even as they stressed for the need to effectively implement the policies and plans, they urged the government to pursue functional changes in the civil service rather than structural changes to enhance efficiency of the civil servants.

They were speaking at a pre-NDF (Nepal Development Forum) interaction organised by the World Bank on Tuesday.

The programme was the second among the series of preparatory programs organsied to receive feedback on government policies and incorporate it on commitment papers, which the government would be placing on the NDF meet slated from February 4-7.

The top-level government officials floated the government’s policies related with civil society partnership, governance reform and decentralisation for discussion.

Presenting the policy paper on civil society partnership, Dr Nirmal Pandey, member of the National Planning Commission (NPC) said that the government is mulling to incorporate the civil society organisations (CSOs) including Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) under one umbrella with an aim to facilitate them through one window mechanism.

However, Gauri Pradhan of Nepal NGO Federation billed the government’s policy to include NGOs in CSOs impractical. He viewed that the NGOs should be registered at the level of their operation and urged for curtailing the need to register NGOs twice at CDO office and Social Welfare Council (SWC).

Mukunda Prasad Aryal, Secretary at Ministry of General Administration (MoGA) presenting policy paper on governance reform said that the political commitment and internally driven changes and its implementation were required for the success of the governance reform program.

He emphasised that the Council for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) would be strengthened to combat corruption through three anti-corruption bills and a new CIAA Act.

However, experts viewed that the impasse seen between the political rule and civil service should be bridged. "Administrative skills and initial training should be made mandatory to enhance the efficiency of civil servants," said Dr Govinda Dhakal. He advocated for setting up reservations for women candidate with certain criteria to realise gender empowerment.

Stating that the political influence on recruitment of staff should be stopped, Radha Krishna Mainali of CPN-ML said that the recruitment in the regional offices and organisations should be done at local/regional level.

Meanwhile, speaking on decentralisation policy, experts said that focus should be laid on transfer of authority. It should transfer centralised authority to the local bodies to mobilise local resources.

Earlier, presenting policy paper on decentralisation Uday Raj Soti, Secretary at the Ministry of Local Development said that the government is taken decentralisation as the key factor to boost local development. Institutionalisation of long-term planning at local level, participation of local organisations, institutionalisation of local bodies in the development process are major aspects of the upcoming plan.