SAARC Ministerial Meeting
For Enhancement Of Cooperation

By Shirish B. Pradhan

THE seven member countries of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) have during the Eleventh Summit held in Kathmancu earlier this year made commitments to make the regional grouping more cohesive, result-oriented and forward looking body. With these commitments in mind the recently concluded 23rd Session of the SAARC Council of Ministers felt the need for further accelerating the process of regional cooperation in the core areas of poverty alleviation, economic cooperation and social development. The two day ministerial meeting preceded by foreign secretary level and official level meetings reviewed the progress make while implementing the SAARC Declaration and decisions made by the SAARC Summit. The participating SAARC Foreign Ministers during the ministerial meet expressed satisfaction over the progress made by the SAARC in implementating the decisions taken by the last Summit. The SAARC foreign ministers during the 23rd Ministerial meeting renewed their commitment to carry forward the spirit of cooperation in South Asia by further accelerating the SAARC process.

Commitment

During the SAARC meetings all the decisions were taken unanimously and all the delegates reaffirmed their firm commitment in implementing these decisions. The growing Indo-Pak tension could in no way could block the regular process of the South Asian organisation. The delegates were careful not to caste shadow of the bilateral issues during the SAARC deliberations. Both Indian and Pakistani delegates sat together, shook hands, smiled and talked to each other during the SAARC meetings. In fact, SAARC provided an opportunity to the member countries to sit together and discuss any bilateral issue in the sidelines of the formal meetings. This way SAARC has been instrumental in easing regional tension and promoting bilateral cooperation. Cashing this opportunity Nepal held extensive bilateral discussions with officials from India, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. During the bilateral discussions between Nepalese and Indian officials issues like combating Maoist terror, harnessing water resources, promoting bilateral trade and enhancing economic cooperation were figured.

The SAARC ministerial meetings drew serious attention of the member countries to the burning problem of terrorism, which is engulfing the entire region. Combating Terrorism and Preventing Girls Trafficking for Prostitution in South Asia were the two major areas, which got priority during the deliberations of the SAARC ministerial meetings. The SAARC Convention on combating terrorism was signed 15 years back in 1987 and many new developments have taken place in these years. So, the Council of Ministers meeting has felt the need to update the SAARC Convention on Suppression of Terrorism in the context of September 11 terrorist attack in New York and the recent regional developments. The meeting also felt the need to amend the SAARC Convention on Terrorism in line with the UNSC Resolution 1373 and the International Convention for Suppression of Financing of Terrorism. The meeting also recognized the need for early implementation of the Convention on Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Women and Children for Prostitution and on Regional Arrangements for the Promotion of Child Walfare in South Asia. South Asia is the centre of girls trafficking and hundreds of thousands of girls and women of this region have become victims of this trade.

Following the Kathmandu Summit in January this year SAARC has gained new momentum and regional cooperation has received due attention from all the member countries. "A fresh dynamism has been injected in the various activities of the SAARC since last Summit," remarked SAARC chairperson and Nepalese Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba opening the 23rd Session of the Council of Ministers on August 21, 2002. The regional grouping of the seven South Asian countries: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, has been instrumental in presenting common positions on various international issues. "We have also evolved and presented common positions at major international conferences since January this year," observed Prime Minister Deuba. SAARC common positions have been maintained during the FAO regional meeting held in Kathmandu and the World Food Summit held in Rome, and the recently concluded World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johnnesberg. The long-term vision of the seven nation regional grouping is to form a South Asian Economic Union with a view to achieving economic prosperity and wellbeing of the 1.5 billion people of the region. For this purpose we have to further consolidate regional economic cooperation. To attain this we need to accelerate the negotiations on the fourth round of SAPTA and conclude the SAFTA treaty framework as soon as possible.

While we have made good progress in a number of areas, there is much to be desired in consolidating regional economic cooperation, Prime Minister Deuba has remarked. Nepal has been emphasizing on building effective institutional mechanism for SAARC and making the SAARC process more business like. There is a need to strengthen the implementation and institutional capability and to focus our activities on core areas of cooperation, observed Prime Minister Deuba.

The way SAARC ministers unanimously voiced concern for the need to build effective measures in combating terrorism is an important achievement of the meeting., In fact, most of the SAARC member countries are facing the menace of terrorism in its different manifestations. Nepal, India and Sri Lanka are equally suffering from the violence and terror unleashed by terrorists. The SAARC countries will again meet at ministerial and official levels later this year to enhance cooperation in fighting terrorism, the common enemy of humanity. Indian External Affairs Minister Mr. Sinha has also expressed satisfaction over the stand taken by SAARC on combating terrorism saying it was "worthwhile and satisfactory".

The SAARC meeting has also recommended to take vital steps towards social transformation in South Asia in favour of women, children, the downtrodden and the marginalised sections of the society. For this purpose the Council of Ministers meeting has given directives for the early implementation of the two conventions relating to child welfare and girl trafficking with necessary enabling legislation and an early conclusion of the prosed Social Charter. Another subject that drew attention of the member countries during the Ministerial Session was promoton of tourism. The participating delegates of the SAARC countries realised that each and every SAARC country has its unique tourism destination, which it can sell in the global market through joint efforts. All the member SAARC countries can be benefited if tourism is developed through regional cooperation. The SAARC delegates have proposed to convene the SAARC tourism officials meeting later this year to explore the tourism potentials of the South Asian nations.

The stand taken by SAARC on terrorism is vital in the context of growing violence and terror facing the peoples of this region. Nepal is suffering for the past six years from the menace of terrorism, which has left over 4,500 people dead. Terrorism has been the latest menace to the region and the world at large, Prime Minister Deuba has said adding its resurgence in new forms and viciousness in the region and beyond is indeed a matter of great concern to all of us. There is a need to make collective and coordinated efforts from all the SAARC member countries in order to control terrorism. Mr. Deuba has hoped that the SAARC Police Officers Meeting being held in Kathmandu will deal with some aspects of regional cooperation in the suppression of terrorism.

Fixed Date

One of the important decisions taken by the recent ministerial meeting is the decision to hold SAARC meetings in a fixed date every year. The next SAARC Summit will be held between January 5 and 20 in Islamabad and thereafter it will be held on a fixed date each year in January. The decision has cleared all the doubts regarding convening of the SAARC Summit, which sometimes faced uncertainties in the past due to various regions.

Combating Corruption

By Ganesh Shakya

THE leaders of ruling party and the opposition parties, other politicians, the scholars and the common people all have been raising voices against the corruption that has been widely spread in Nepal like an epidemic. The donor agencies participating in Nepal's development programmes have also indicated frequently in different gatherings the involvement of bureaucrats in corruption practices. The voice against corruption raised by national and international entities is enough to prove the existence of rampant corruption in Nepal.

Bold Step

Despite many steps undertaken by the government in the past encountering the corruption in the country, the results have not been satisfactory due to the various reasons like ineffectiveness follow-up, lack of concrete laws, political pressure to dismiss the case and so on. However, the current action undertaken by the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) against 22 civil servants working under Revenue Administration Department under the Ministry of Finance is a bold step. The act of CIAA has been well appreciated from all sectors of the society.
The people want the corrupted persons to be punished as per the degree of corruption they have committed. The guilty must not escape. This case should come to the end as a sample case in which the corrupted person must get punishment.

Corruption cases that come to the public through media are mostly pecuniary concerned. Beside, there is another awful corruption, which is not directly connected to money matter but widely rampant in the country and highly incorporated with the responsibilities of the pen pusher towards their duty.
In fact, civil servants are the key input of the government. They are directly involved in the entire development of the nation. The success and failure of the development plan highly depends upon the performance of the civil servants. Therefore, the government has given them a very prestigious name "Rastra Sewak" - the national servants. The civil servants by all means must be loyal and dedicated to the nation and must be committed to their duties and responsibilities.

But most of the government employees are found not carrying their duties correctly. It is a very common rule in Nepal that a government office works for eight hours a day starting from 9.00 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Ironically many employees do not follow the very important rules. Most of them reach the office at 9.30 to 10.00. Some of them start their official work during the period of 10.00 to 11.00 and other begins to chitchat. From 11.00 to 12.00, the morning tea session starts. From 12.00 to 1.00 p.m. they work. The tiffin hour commonly starts at 1.00 p.m. and it takes 1 to one and half hours. After Tiffin, some of them start working or spend their time just simply doing nothing till 5.00 p.m. and the other start leaving office within the period of 3.00 to 5.00 p.m.

The above timetable has been developed as a common daily routine. Whether the concerned authority has realised it or not but it is a fact. But they are neglecting this? The only reason behind this negligence is nothing more than a poor administrative supervision. The cause of retardation in our national development process is also most probably due to the same deeds of the civil servants.
If the national servants act like that then how the government can work properly and to whom the government relies on. So, it's become a very serious matter to be investigated. We heard about "surprise check" frequently made by the concerned authority and also heard the many employees being found absent during the check. How many of them got warnings and how many got punishment that have never been heard. There may be two reasons for keeping the news un-flashed i.e. maintaining the secrecy or ineffectiveness in action. If it is because of the secrecy, the case like that should have been controlled, but it does not seem so.

In many government offices, the employees particularly the technical personnel are found joining in project work on leave. Working in project, they have dual advantages. The first advantage is handsome salary with attractive perks in the project and the second one is job security. The place remains vacant for the period till the person resumes his/her office. At a time when the unemployment problem in the country is so high, is it right to hold two positions by a single person? Who cares and control the case like that?

Liking the project job and neglecting the parent job is really a wonderful mentality of the civil servants. It happens mostly in the case when the salary is very low not enough to maintain the simple life. But now, the situation is not like that because three years ago, the then government had increased the civil servant's salary not that much huge but substantial to the Nepalese standard of living. The salary may not be enough to meet the unlimited wants but it is equally important for us to think a little about our country's economy also.

Support

Everybody knows that the present situation of the country is very critical. In a situation like this our main duty and responsibility must be to work hard for national development. But, at the same time, if the civil servants do not care about their duty and responsibilities, why should they not be punished for violating their code of conduct? In fact, to fight against corruption and getting control over it is an arduous task. The concerned authority should not go back. Let's begin the action honestly and without prejudice, the people are always at your back to support the government in its anti-corruption move.

The Parcel Terror

By Bhimsen Thapaliya

IT WAS about seven years ago. Me and one of my friends had visited the Tundikhel parade ground to see the Ghodejatra show presented by the Royal Nepal Army. At the end of the show, as we were preparing to return, my friend spotted a dark object near the Tundikhel fence. Upon approaching, it became clear that it was a bag someone had lost, perhaps as a result of the shoving crowd.
We picked up the dirty and old bag and wondering what it contained, we opened it. There were a few parcels inside. One contained Gundruk or dried lettuce. The other had about one kilo of rice. There was a rusty torchlight and a stinking dirty shirt also. We pictured that a visitor from the village had lost the bag, presumably while struggling in the crowd to take a better view of the horse riding show. One of the straps had come off. We hung and demonstrated the bag on a branch of a tree in hope that the loser would turn up and claim the parcel. We staged the demonstration near the place where we found it. We stood at the spot for half an hour or so. If a handsome gentleman of urban lifestyle passed by we did not have the courage to ask whether he or his friend had lost a bag. But we did ask a few people who looked like they had come from villages.

People came, opened the bag and saw the content. But they did not run away at the sight of the bag. I now wonder how fearlessly they approached the unclaimed bag touched it, opened it and examined the contents. I recall the incident and ponder how brave we should have been then to pick up the abandoned bag on the roadside. We did it without a trace of fear.

Less than a decade on, we live in a completely different scene. Let us imagine the replay of the Jhola episode of that Ghodejatra day now. Had we spotted the bag, we would have run away in terror to the police station or army office. To pick up the bag, one had to either be a member of the bomb disposal squad or innocent kids. Or the frustrated people walking on a suicidal mission.

These days a parcel in a public place is the most terrifying object. It is the centre of alarm and fright and a matter of tension for the security people. There is a good reason for panicking as these parcels have turned out to be a killer on many occasions. Garbage collectors, playing kids and security people from bomb disposal squad have been victims. At other times, there are also cases of hoaxes.
It is common to see garbage in plastic bags thrown out in the streets of Kathmandu. This puts a question mark on our civic sense. In the past, vehicles did not bother to avoid a parcel, so they crushed them. Now road parcels are religiously avoided for fear of being killed.

When my child is going to school I often remind him to be mindful of parcels on the road. I also frequently warn him not to pick up tempting objects like a clock, a radio, a calculator, toys or chocolates. I do not know whether or not schoolteachers are teaching these safety tips to their children.