Empower & Educate Local Officials
For Good Governance At VDCs

By Mukti Rijal

QUESTIONS are raised time and again about the use of the government grant to village development committees. Some tend to argue that the resources are not properly used, if not misused. They call for thorough reexamination of grants giving to local bodies and make necessary amends should it be established that VDCs are indulged in resource abuse and misappropriation. Others hold lenient view and place emphasis on trial and error contending that flaws and discrepancies could be corrected in due course of time.

Exaggerated Story

The local government officials do air strong rebuttal to the charge. Some DDC presidents are heard saying that the line agencies spend tens of million rupees at the district for larger projects but without any real and lasting outputs and results. No fingers are pointed at them and line agencies are allowed to go scot-free whereas exaggerated stories are cooked about the misuse of resources at the local bodies.

It can be said that the local governments in many cases are cash strapped and have no resources at their disposal to indulge in gross and fragnant misuse. Some VDCs and DDCs have started generating resources but the volume and size is not big enough to allow the officials to steep in the morass of corruption.

However, no matter the size and magnitude of resources there are some cases of improper use and mis-utilisation. A few of them can only be imputed to the intents bordering on corruption whereas many of the cases are the results of lack of knowledge, skills and support administrative and technical manpower. Some cases of improper use of resources can also be ascribed to political resources.

A large majority of local government office bearers are not seemingly aware of the provisions in law that require the observance of the tenets of good governance. This writer had an opportunity, not very long back, to interest with VDC office bearers of the Palung and the Daman VDCs in Makwanpur district. Not all of them have read and understood the provisions of the Local Self-Governance Act specific to the village development committees.

A large number of Village council members including the women and members from disadvantaged commu-nities coopted in the VDCs have not even seen not to talk of reading the law.

This shows the poor state of the official commitment to implement the law in the sense that it was incumbent upon the government to, at least, reach the law out to those who must know about it for implementation. This responsibility should have been borne by the government at the expense of state exchequer. Relying on donor agencies or some non-governmental urgency to assume the line functions of this nature does not serve any good purpose.

We can take cue from South Africa where the Multiracial government headed by Nelson Mandela made it possible to distribute a copy of the country’s new constitution to all the citizen as a first attempt of educating the citizens on the new constitution enacted following the abolition of apartheid. We in Nepal can easily do to make the local self-governance act and the rules available to all local government institutions at one, if not to all the elected members. But the ground reality appears that the rules are yet to reach down to the distant villages. There is enthusiasm and interest at the local level but lack of education and training and other supportive measures have been at the root of poor performance or underper-formance.

The local self-governance Act has several provisions that seek to strengthen the values of good governance. Section 19 of the Local Self-Governance Act requires that the local government officials should declare their assets, both moveable and immovable within thirty days of being sworn in the office. In some cases this may not be practical and necessary at the village level, as people know each other intimately including the property holding of the elected people. This can be started from the level of DDC and slowly implemented at the VDC level.

The Local Self-Governance Act provides for stronger scheme of rule of law. The VDCs can formulate bylaws and bring them into effect after the Village Council approves them. An element of separation of power is also introduced at the village level with law making and deliberative functions entrusted to village council and the executive tasks and mandates given to the executives body.

The concept of Public Accounts Committee enshrined in the Local Self-Governance Act is important in the context of financial integrity and good governance at the local level. The Committee needs to be formed at the VDC level and it is heartening to note that the Public Accounts Committee has been in place in many VDCs where the elected office bearers are aware of the provision. In the Parsa DDCs, as told to this authors there was stiff contest for the positions of the committee. This is in line with the Public Accounts Committee at the national parliament. Should the committee become effective and functional at the VDC and DDC level, many alleged irregularities and arrears could be brought to disclosure for rectification and settlement.

True Spirit

Development and empowerment go hand in hand with good governance. We have several problems constraining the strict application of the tenets of good governance at the central level. Despite some minor problems the districts and villages can be easily brought on the rail of good governance if we acted to implement the Local Self-Governance Act in true and honest spirit.

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