Security Concerns

Participating in an opinion poll conducted by Business Age, the leading businessmen and women and CEOs of well-known business organizations, viewed that Maoist insurgency has become the greatest security threat. Almost 50% of the respondents in the opinion poll viewed that the recently announced hefty increase in the budget for security purpose was not a positive step. The results of the poll also indicate towards a fear spreading across Nepali business community that existing foreign investors may pull out of the country if the security situation remains as it is now, though without deteriorating any further.

Possibly, pessimism to such an extent would not have featured in the poll had it been conducted about two months back. The bomb blasts that hit Surya Tobacco Company (P) Ltd.’s property at Simra and Colgate-Palmolive’s manufacturing unit at Hetauda have caused this fear to escalate. Despite many other security threats existing here as elsewhere, the respondents of the poll have almost unanimously identified Maoist insurgency as the single-most serious factor posing security threat in Nepal.

It is said that due to Maoist insurgency spreading across the country, and looking at the growing strength of the movement, some business establishments pay money to the insurgents in the hope of buying security. However, the respondents have almost unitedly denied this charge. If anyone is making such payments, it is because of the lack of confidence in the government’s security system, not because of sympathy to Maoists, the respondents have maintained. One respondent commented that such payments, if any, are virtually going to some cheats through whom it finds way to the same nexus of individuals who do not want to let the problem be solved.