To Bring The Corrupt To Book
Put Teeth In CIAA’s Jaws

By Prakash Dahal

NIGERIAN President once worried at why his countrymen preferred foreign leather products to the Nigerian products. And, to find out the cause, he hired couple of foreign experts. They set to work and went to the manufacturers asking them why their products were of lower quality to that of foreigners.

Query

The manufacturer told them it was not their mistake but the butchers. The butchers bungled the job of slaying the animals and spoilt the leather. Now, they went to the butchers asking why they did the job badly. They said that it was not their mistake but ranchers. They ruined the leather by branding the animals with branding iron. The experts had no way but to go to the ranchers to ask why they did so. And, the ranchers replied that it was not their mistake either. It was the animals who rubbed their bodies against the barbed wire and bruised their skins.

Now the experts had nowhere to go but to the President. They unanimously told him that his cows were stupid.

Imagine if we hire foreign experts to find out the roots of corruption, what their conclusion might be? They would probably say, the cause lies in your soil.

Once former prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba was quoted telling that counter corruption responsibilities should be given to Transparency International (TI). Whether or not Deuba meant what he said but he didn’t keep his words. Had he assigned the TI, they wouldn’t have come better than the foreign experts asked to study the causes for failing market of Nigerian leather.

The other day, Commission for Investigating Abuse of Authority (CIAA) Commissioner, Indra Bahadur Sherachan, is quoted having said, " We are not capable in bringing the corrupt to the book." Sherachan, however, didn’t elaborate further explaining why the CIAA couldn’t do so. Other commissioners, however, made scathing remarks on government’s attitude towards curbing corruption. They alleged the government of deliberately wanting to defang the CIAA and empower the Special Police keeping it under its tighter grip.

Though their allegation may not be completely groundless, the CIAA remains a constitutional body which, when and if, truly empowered, can do things unpredictable and unprecedented to the dismay and embarrassment of some. The government ‘s failing to appoint the CIAA Chief for such a long period and the man who is supposed to hold the rein of CIAA being no where in the horizon could lend some amount of weight to the allegations made by the CIAA Commissioners.

CIAA cannot be said to be without problems. And, the government is not unaware of it. In fact, CIAA’s plight is similar to the citizen seeking right-to-express in a dictatorial regime where the dictator grants them the right to speak—but thrust cotton into his ears. CIAA undoubtedly has wings—but it seems it can’t fly because its wings are clipped. It knows who corrupt are, but it seems it has yet prove it. And, the reason why it can’t prove is that it can’t do so alone and needs honest and sincere cooperation from several other government agencies. If the noose should really be tightened around the neck of the corrupt, several agencies should stand hand-clasped against them.

CIAA has constitutionally provided rights to investigate and move the court against the suspect. But, does it have the mechanism, manpower, required sophisticated strategies and the resources required to pursue its mission and accomplish its goal?

If not, how and where can it acquire them from? How honestly, boldly, daring, and aggressively can the existing manpower, placed at the CIAA by the concerned authorities, go in seizing the corrupt by their neck? Can the civil servants/employees be expected to roll the heads of another colleague who rank high in office heirarchy? Can the same employees deputed at CIAA be secured enough against retaliation of the allegedly corrupt politicians? And, what if today’s CIAA personnel are pulled back at the government offices and replaced by others, will they still be safe?

The problem doesn’t end here. Even if the CIAA has the power and resources whereby it starts recruiting manpower by itself, curbing corruption could still remain a far cry. And, the reason is what if the government agencies do not cooperate. What has been proved from several studies and surveys is that corruption emanates at the higher echelons and goes down to the lower rungs of the heirarchy. A recent survey alleges that politicians and bureaucrats as the most corrupt in the country.

Much like the Texan phrase "all heads and no cattle," the CIAA has the noose but there are no necks around which it should be tightened. With the existing manpower, resources, mechanism and strategies, CIAA’s chances of proving any one guilty of corruption in the dock seem to be quite dim. They know the corrupt but somehow can’t strip their immunity in absence of evidence which is impossible for them to gather in isolation. They need the commitment not only in words but in action from all those agencies which work under the law enforcement arms of government. But, the commitment should come from the top, if corruption should really be discouraged, let alone eradicating it.

Will

The government should demonstrate will towards putting teeth in the jaws of CIAA by working in close, honest and sincere coordination with it. Because no foreign experts or consultants like TI or others, as Deuba said, can help us. They will certainly do a better study but the findings would be no better than the foreign experts’ finding about the quality of the Nigerian leather goods.

Population Growth: Mounting Problems

By Khilendra Basnyat

TODAY, population growth has become a worldwide problem. Although a handful of so-called developed countries have been successful to check population growth, developing nations like ours have failed to control it.

Addition

The world population growth rate peaked about two per cent in 1970 and dropped below 1.6 per cent in 1995. Despite the fact that the rate is declining, the annual addition is close to ninety million per year.

World population is now the largest in history and is increasing at a place that if not reduced could double in the next four decades. From mid-1965 to mid-1975 alone, the increase in population was almost equal to the world total of two centuries ago. Just since 1900 world population has increased from about 1.5 billion to six billion.

It has been estimated that about thirty countries now have stable populations, including most of those in Europe and Japan. Included in the thirty are all the industrial countries of Europe such as France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the United Kingdom. These countries have about fourteen per cent of global population. This testifies to the fact that one-seventh of the world population is already there. What is more, these countries provide the solid base for building a world population stabilisation effort.

In fact, the challenge is for the countries with the remaining eighty-six per cent of the world population to reach stability. The two large nations that could make biggest differences in this endeavour are the peoples Republic of China and the United States. In both these countries, the population growth rate is about one per cent per year. If the global food situation becomes desperate, both could reach stability in a few decades if they decided it were important to do so.

In recent times, not all countries are achieving population stability for right reasons. This is true today and it may be true in future also. Since food deficits in densely populated countries increase, governments may find there is inadequate food available to import.

Between fiscal year 1993 and 1996, food aid tropped from 15.2 million tons of grain to 7.6 million tons. This reduction in food aid not only reflects fiscal stringencies in donor countries but also to a lesser degree, high grain prices in the fiscal year 1996. If the governments fail to strike a human balance between their people and food supplies, there is no doubt that hunger and malnutrition may raise death rates, thereby eventually flowing population growth.

As world population has doubted since mid-century and the global economy has nearly quintupled, the demand for natural resources has considerably increased. According to a reliable source, since 1950, the need for grant has increased more than four times. Water use has tripled and the demand for major rangeland products, chicken and mutton has tripled. Likewise, firewood demand has tripled, lumber has doubled, and paper has gone up as well. In the same way, the burning of fossil fuels has increased nearly four fold.

Although advanced countries like the United States have population growth rates substantially lower than those of developing countries they also encounter problems due to population factor. These problems came into sharp focus in cities, where there is over-crowding, a lack of jobs for all wishing to work, inadequate social services, increasing crime rates and different kinds of pollution.

In reality, evolution has prepared us to compete with other species to survive and to multiply. However, it has not equipped us well to either understand or deal with the threat we pose to ourselves in our country. We cannot understand the meaning of adding ninety million people year after year unless we face the shortage of food, water and firewood. As a matter of fact, we have not yet learnt to stabilise our demands within other sustainable boundaries of the earth’s ecosystem.

With population, the challenge is to complete the demographic transition to maintain the balance between births and deaths that characterises a sustainable society. As populations are rarely precisely stable, for simplicity, a stable population is here defined as with a growth rate below 0.3 per cent. In fact, populations are effectively stable if they fluctuate narrowly around zero.

Since world interest in population growth intensified in the mid-1960s when a grave food shortage developed in South Asia, new and strong population policies and programmes leading to reduction in high birth rates have been initiated by scores of national governments and by the United Nations, other international agencies and non-governmental organisations/institutions. Consequently, by mid-1975 over two-thirds of the world’s people were residing in countries with positive programmes for family planning as well as control of excess fertility.

Today, many developing and developed countries have launched population/family planning programmes as a means of attacking socio-economic problems stemming in some degree from excessive or poorly distributed populations. Undoubtedly, these activities are having a measurable effect on birth rates and percentage rates of population increase all over the world.

In 1968, a broadening action was started in order to help developing countries to carry out population programmes.

In the early 1970s, population activities continued to expand in many countries. In this regard, existing private agencies expanded their operation and new agencies entered the field. Multilateral agencies involvement in population programmes stepped up through the work of UNFPA and other UN agencies.

Today, Nepal is seeing a huge population growth. The rate of growth of population here is 2.08 per cent per annum, the high growth of population has been hindering the country’s socio-economic development. Apart from this, it is also depleting the social sector budget very fast.

In the last decade alone, our country’s population increased by five million. A relatively high birth rate and a declining mortality rate has been responsible for accelerated rate of population growth. Aside from this, immigrant population might have caused to augment population to some extent. Since twenty per cent of our present population falls under the age group of fifteen to twenty-four years, population experts are of the opinion that there will be an alarming increase in population after two decades.

Definite

Poverty is directly linked to population growth. Since the main objective of the present government is to alleviate poverty, it should formulate more effective policies in order to check the unbridled population growth. Otherwise it is definite that we will be in a more embarrassing position in future.

Education: Policy Vs Practice

By Rishi Ram Paudyal

EDUCATION is the backbone of a country. In other words it is a sign of progress of a nation. Therefore, the first thing that a nation has to do is to impart quality education to its people. A nation is a body and the people are its soul. Citizens being so important for the existence of a country, any government should give top-most priority to educate its citizens. That is why Benjamin Disraeli, the First Earl of Beaconsfield, had once said "Upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends."

Our education policy is not free from criticism. Though our government has alloted a large portion of budget for education, the achievements don’t seem to be as fruitful as expected.

The reason behind low quality education is easy to find. We don’t have to go very far. One can simply join a government college, with a few exceptions, and observe the teaching atmosphere in them. Then one will find out that our education policy is going one side, and the teaching-learning process is heading the other side. Let’s take an example of three years. B.A. programme. The books and contents selected for the programme are, no doubt, better than the previous ones. But when it comes to teaching and learning process, there one can find a problem. The prescribed text books are very good but in many colleges they are rarely taught. Teachers even don’t bother to complete the course. What to do only with the good books? Classes take place off and on and the teachers take teaching very lightly. When lecturers don’t bother about whether students are learning or not, when they deliver their unprepared and unmotivated lectures, students lose interest, fear the study and the examination. Teachers have a great role to play in teaching. But they seem to be confusing their students with their pompous lectures. Many teachers seem to hold that students doing higher studies should study their course themselves. If so, tell the students very clearly so that they can decide and plan to study in their own way. No doubt, they have to carry their own burden but teachers’ prepared lectures, motivation and concern would enrich the knowledge of the students as well as the relationship of both the teachers and the students.

However, there are some problems of teachers and students which impede effective teaching learning process. There are a large number of students in each class and the classrooms lack proper lighting system. Even in this twenty-first century, they are rubbing a piece of chalk on the hard surface of the blackboard.

Many teachers don’t have proper lesson plans. They don’t try to be creative and active to make their lectures interesting. They don’t motivate students through discussion.

Many students at college are job-holders. They come to college but the classes are irregular. After college and the whole day’s work they get tired and go to bed early. They don’t have enough time to study. Many students start studying only when their examination is coming nearer.

Students don’t pay due attention to teachers. Like teachers, they also take education lightly. They make a noise and disturb the class.

This is not all. The existing examination and evaluation system is also contributing to low quality education. Examinations have not been properly monitored and invigilated. In the examination hall there are some students who take guess paper and chits and manage to jot down the answers illegally on their answer sheets. These students pass and are formally qualified to hold any sensitive or important job, which creates problems in the long run.

Evaluation is the last process which determines the quality. But the stories of unfair and wrong evaluation have been heard and also seen printed in different newspapers now and then. This shows how weak our education system is.

It is not only the policy alone but its proper implementation that counts for quality education. The government should train teachers, check their activities now and them and curb the irregularities in class.

It should make the students attend their classes regularly. The government should also hold the teachers responsible if they don’t complete the course.