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June, 2003 |
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No laughing Matter |
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For
Agragami Chhalang of Chambers Soon
FNCCI will go for the election for a new president and a number of vice
presidents. While there have been different speculations being made by
different observers about the results, last night I had a dream which
detailed the future course of FNCCI and the other chambers of the
country. Let me share it to you with the hope that someone of the
readers is a dream analyst. Everybody
knows that Nepali chambers are always in the news for their internal
politics rather than for activities like drafting policies for the
growth of the economy or promoting the private sectors’ agenda.
Therefore, in my dream I forwarded a few suggestions in this regard. Instead
of pulling each other’s legs and doing all sorts of hanky-panky to be
in the power, the time has now come for the business community to think
differently. The first thing they can do is to form different
associations or chambers of commerce and industry (CCIs) for different
communities. One can be Newar CCI, the other Bahun CCI, Chhetri CCI,
Marwari CCI, Terai CCI, Hills CCI, SMEs CCI, Industrialists’ CCI,
Traders CCI, Ethical CCI, Unethical CCI etc. At least that should be
enough to begin with. Later as the emotions and egos of these chambers
and members of the chambers will automatically grow, more chambers or
associations can be set up. There must be freedom of association, and
thereby the freedom of splitting and merger, as it is there among the
political parties. One
important move towards this would be to hold an ‘International Contest
on Conflict Creation and Leg Pulling 2020’. For this a selection has
to be made among the existing chambers to find out who is more active in
organizing the largest number of receptions, whose members are more
active in the politics and so on. International observers should be
invited to monitor the election. The winner chamber should be Nepali
participant in the event. Second
important move should be to redefine the objectives and the role of
these chambers. Their traditional role of lobbying with the government
on policy matters should be left to the politicians. Now the role of any
chamber should not be to look after only the interest of its members and
the interest of the country. Yes in certain matters they can look at the
interest of its members (e.g. in forming cartels as the bankers’
association has been able to do in forex rate and the bus entrepreneurs
are doing in controlling the fare and routes). But normally the
chamber’s role should be to welcome and follow the orders of every
Tom, Dick and Harry who comes in the power, be as a finance minister,
industry minister, tourism minister or Maoist leader. They can
indulge in as many sterile activities as possible (such as organizing
the round table for peace negotiation) as long as they do not directly
interfere with the life of the ordinary Nepalis. The
third job the chambers has to do is to cajole the donors to dole out
assistance to them. Till now it has been the government that has been
requesting the donor agencies to support Nepal. In the present age of
privatization, it is the private sector, especially the chambers, which
have to do the begging. They have to beg for the quota from the
developed countries; they have to solicit donation or any kind of
favours they can get from the developed economies. They should forget
risk taking as they have been repeatedly saying that they are not able
to compete with the businesses of the developed countries. Similarly,
they should also try to win the favours of the power centers and become
ministers in the government or advisors to the planning commission or
such bodies. Now that the people of the public sector are joining the
private sector, corresponding moves have to be made also from the
private sector into the public sector. One former vice chairman of
National Planning Commission and a governor or Nepal Rastra Bank are
working in the private sector companies. Similarly, many people of the
central bank have joined the private banks after they retired. In the
same manner, private sector people have to be in the bureaucracy. Once these changes are started in earnest, Nepali business community will surely achieve a “long stride forward” (or Aggragami Chhalang, to borrow it from the Maoists.) |
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