National 1 (Spotlight Weekly)

Under Bureaucratic Noose

With the government refusing to extend tenure of elected representatives, the local bodies come under the direct control of the government

By A CORRESPONDENT

Nearly 4,000 village development committees, five dozen municipalities and 75 district development committees in the country have lost their elected representatives (over 200,000 all over the country) beginning Wednesday (July 17) at one stroke of the government's decision. As the term of the local bodies expired on Tuesday, the government decided to delegate authorities to run these bodies to its own employees rather than extending their tenure by one year, as stipulated in the law.

Minister for Home and Local Development Khum Bahadur Khadka said recently that the elections for local bodies will be held after the general elections due to November this year. Officials maintained earlier that the elections for the local bodies could not be held due to deteriorating law and order situation in the country. But with the dissolution of the parliament and announcement of dates for snap polls, the government has to conduct polls as soon as possible.

Sensing that the government was not in a mood to extend the tenure of the local bodies, the main opposition in the dissolved parliament, CPN (UML) had pressurized the government for the same. "The government's decision in anti-democratic and against the spirit of decentralization," said former UML lawmaker and chief of the party's department for local bodies, Rajendra Pandey. "We will launch nationwide protest programs in a way not disturbing the upcoming polls."

The UML grabbed majority of the seats in the local bodies during the polls conducted by its minority government in 1995. Most of the political parties, including Nepali Congress, alleged then Home Minister Bamdev Gautam of misusing the state power to influence the elections. Even Home Minister Khadka has been reported as saying that there was no rationale for continuing the representatives of the local bodies who were elected to the office in an irregular way.

"This is baseless," said Pandey. "All the government wants is to reduce our popular base and influence elections through bureaucracy."

As implied by their name, people visit local bodies to get recommendations for citizenship certificate, passports, among others and also get local development works sanctioned. The government's decision will not only hamper people's access to local bodies, but also create problems in VDCs where the post of nearly half of the 4,000 VDC Secretaries (who are government employees) remain vacant due to Maoist insurgency. The rebels have torched down nearly 1,000 VDC offices and burnt the documents all over the country over the last few months. They could expect their local representatives to share their grievances. No more. It is because the government employees will be looking for their bosses at Singha Durbar, rather than listening to people from the villages.

NATURAL DISASTER
'Angry Gods'

This monsoon's first major disaster hits eastern hilly district of Khotang

By A CORRESPONDENT

Even after three days of the natural calamity, the exact figures of casualties in the Khotang landslide were not available. Latest reports said 22 bodies had bee recovered and 22 more were missing. Previous reports said as much as 46 people had died and over one hundred were missing.

According to media reports, landslide caused by heavy rains swept away over two dozen houses and a health post in Sungdel and Dipsung VDCs in the district. Rescue workers were airdropped to the VDCsóthat are located some 20 km north from the district headquarter, Diktelóafter several hours. But they were not able to communicate fast due to lack of communication facilities. There is no telephone facility in Diktel for the last few months as the Maoists had destroyed a telecom tower in the nearby district of Udaypur. Instead of providing relief to local people, a group of rebels torched one of the VDCs suffering from the landslide early this week, KANTIPUR F. M. reported.

RSS news agency reported that even those who managed to survive are taking refuge in nearby villages or forest areas. Hundreds of people are killed due to flood and landslide in Nepal every year. While destruction of environment by people to make their livelihood is mainly responsible for such calamities, lack of early warning systems to prevent such disaster is utterly lacking. So, when monsoon arrives thousands of people across the country are forced to spend sleepless nights fearing of "angry gods.'