Fight Against Corruption
Budgetary Measures

By Mukti Rijal

THE 2000/2001 budget presented by Finance Minister Mahesh Acharya is characteristic of novel ideas in many respects. The emphasis placed on good governance and corruption free civil service is an important dimension of the budget statement. The budget is formulated to target to, among others, combating corruption as pledged by the Prime Minister himself in the wake of his taking over the mantle as the head of the democratic government not very long back.

Unchecked

There is no denying the fact that corruption and practices verged on power abuse have gone up unchecked. This has not only earned disrepute to the democratic polity but also undermined the basics of development governance. It is said that the corruption is like the mythological hydra. It is many-headed toe that insinuates itself into every part of the social fabric, weakens the body politic and jeopardises the prospects for economic growth.

Corruption cannot be conquered or tamed without a strategy bulit on multipronged tactics. Entrenched systemic corruption others challenges to the body politic making it difficult to foil its designs. The budget statement presented by the finance minister is seemingly cognizant of the threats posed by the spreading corruption in the socio-economic fabric of the nation. It has sought to address the problems through different ways and means.

At least three pronged strategies have been pronounced by the budget to prevent the growing menace of the corrupt activities. The accent on decentralisation, incentive mechanism for civil servants and priority to the role of civil society are three mutually reinforcing and supporting sweepstakes to tackle the corruption and enhance the prospects of good governance.

Decentralisation and decentralised governance certainly minimise the chance for corruption and abuse of power. Decentralisation is endowing the responsibility of governance and development in the local government untils and communities. This increases the possibility of community supervision and assessment of the activities of the government units and keep vigilance whether misuse of resources and power have occurred.

The budget statement places emphasis on the institutional development of local bodies so that they acquire capacity to implement local development projects, monitor them and evaluatge their impacts. It also pledges to augment resources base of the local bodies, through local taxation. The budget statement spells out a line of destination of responsibilities of central ministries, regional directorates and local bodies adding an important dimension to the process of decentralisation and development. It sets forth rather a strategic value and orientation outlining that the central line ministries and departments will be made to perform the roles of policy making and providing technical support while regional directorates take role and responsibilities for coordination and monitoring.

The local bodies will be made responsible for real execution of public service delivery and construction. It is to be emphasised that the strengthening of the local government institutions and allowing them to take more roles in development and governance creates room for popular control over corruption and malgovernance. However, some measures, especially increasing fund for parliamentary constituency development programme tend to undercut the goal of strengthening local government institutions.

The second planks of the budget aimed at controlling corruption is restructuring carried out in the incentive mechanism of the civil servants. It is believed that reasonably well paid civil servants are less prone to the act of corruption and perform their responsibilities honestly.

The budget has raised the salary of the civil servants based on the report of the pay commission. This has been done, according of the budget statement, to make civil service more productive, competent and efficient. The government has committed to strengthening the commission on the investigation of the abuse of authority and curbing the discretionary power vested in the people holding responsible position. Moreover, the bucreaucratic leviathan will be downsized and trimmed and make it more efficient and result oriented.

The think plank of the budget as a measure to counter corruption is the role clarified for civil society. The government has committed to make civil society effective in implementing activities for good governance, poverty alleviation and socio-economic progress of the country. Moreover, transparency, accountability of the civil society functions itself are emphasised so that effectiveness and positive results could be achieved. Civil society organisations can play an instrumental role in checking corruption through their vigilance and watch over the corrupt practices and bringing them to public notice and knowledge through disclosures.

Implementation

The measures oultined in the budget carry no meaning if they are not implemented effectively. The
budget statement is formulated correctly and aspires to achieve important resultes for good governance. It is hoped that weak implementation will not be the case.

Civil Society’s Role Vital

By Khilendra Basnyat

Democracy is considered the most ideal form of government. History and experiences of developed and developing countries have proved that democracy is the demand of time in respect to political expediency, social justice and rantionale.

Hard Reality

During the end of the 1980s and early 90s the only buzzword for donor countries and financial institutions organisations was democracy a if the very world would bring about miracles for the majority of the people living in poverty in developing countries. However, it has been obvious that the multi-party democracy has been a very hard reality to be translated into a fact of life for socio-economic development and meeting people’s aspirations, especially in fulfilling their basic needs. As a result, there has been class conflicts, social unrest and frustration among the public.

A decade ago multi-party democracy was restored in our country through popular people’s movement. After the reushering in of democracy, the biggest achievement has been the guaranteeing of the fundamental rights of the people to live a life of dignity and honour. However, an unfortunate development in the last ten years of multi-democracy has been the rampant political interference in different governmental sectors and other institutions/organisations.

In fact, the transaction from autocracy to the multi-party system neither cured the woes of the people nor contributed to enhance their standard of living.

The frequent changes (ten times in a decade) of governments, premature elections (three general elections), lack of good governance, frequent strikes and disturbances have incurred a heavy loss in our country both in terms of time and resources.

Political stability is still to be totally satisfactory and development activities have often been hampered. People’s economic status has not been improved.

Today, intellectual and general people are getting disappointed. Really speaking, the sincerity and sacrifices of leaders, the responsible activities of bureacrats and the hard labour of the people have already been overdue before exhausting the patience of the people.

In the ten years since the parliamentary exercises have been carried out, the delivery of goods has been far short of people’s expectations.

In recent times, even the leaders who spearheaded the popular movement to reestablish democracy in the country realise that there have been shortcomings in diverse sectors. Lack of political culture and mortality have negatively affected the ability of various governments to meet people’s expectations. However, both the leaders and the people are optimistic that value based politics would help consolidate democracy and would lead the nation to the path that had been encouraged by our constitution.

In the past, political parties became very busy in strengthening their organisational base so that they made light the work of making efforts to meet the needs of the people. These parties also could not show the vision to initiate welfare schemes for the people.

Constructive criticism is a democratic culture. It helps the government to identify people’s needs and adopt suitable measures. Hence, the government should always invite inter and intra party criticism and respond to them positively.

The promotion of democracy depends on the performance of elected leaders. Therfore, an elected leader must have moral courage to back up measures that are pro-people and anti-corruption. In fact, he has to go a long way in order to prove his worth. He should aim at doing something which no other elected representative ever thought of doing in the country.

Untained moral conduct among those at the helm of leadership is essential for institutional development of democracy because leaders devoid of good moral conduct can never win the faith of the people.

If politicians continue upholding popular wishes, the frustration among the people in the country after the restoration of democracy will undoubtedly end.

Since the reestablishment of democracy, there has been nepotism and favouritism in the political appointments made by the government. As democracy cannot flourish without ensuring the pirnciple of the right person in the right place, proper attention should be given to qualification, ability and professional experience of the persons for appointments in public positions.

In order to institutionalise democracy, the concerned authorities should be able to make all the people and communities feel that they have an equally significant role to play in nation building.

The civil society representing a wide range of governmental and non-governmental organisations, pressure groups and intellectual forums have equally important role to play in influencing both the government and the opposition and bring them in the right track. Since civil society is a watch-dog, it should work with alertness. Apart from this, it should be independent, neutral and unbiased in its judgement of the activities of the government and the opposition.

Consensus

Sometimes the government and the opposition may fail to come to a compromise. At this moment , the civil society should come forward and make them resort to dialgoue and reach a consensus. It can not only urge the government to take the right actions but also pursuade the oppposition not to resort to uncalled for activities.