Prospects of Good Governance

Dr. Ram Kumar Dahal, T.U

The concept of good governance has become a universally recognized phenomenon. All countries, whether democratic or authoritarian, claim to have good governance. In this sense, Nepal is not an exception. The Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal 1990 has tried to strengthen this concept; but in practice it is facing several problems.

The term governance is closely associated with control, rule or administration of a state through implementation of laws. In recent years it entered the vocabulary of development in a rather episodic way. It has been used somewhat casually to address issues in the development process, which are not explained by traditional references to public policy, public administration, and nature of the state or even markets. These different dimensions of governance have all figured in development literature and policy-making in the past. According to Robinson, governance "applies to the exercise of power in a variety of institutional contexts, the object of which is to direct, control and regulate activities in the interests of people as citizens, workers and voters". Some others view that governance is considered important because "it impacts directly on the lives of poor people" who are "less able to avoid the adverse consequences of poor governance, and, therefore, it bears a disproportionate share of the ill-effects of the system and does not reflect their interests. The economic well being of the poor is affected through both direct and indirect channels. It is the exercise of "political power" to manage a nation’s affairs". Good governance is as Kul Shekhar Sharma points out, "about utilizing power and resources in a way that maximizes the welfare of the people."

The standard meaning of governance in a modern state is that the leadership that exercises political power must show that it has used the power and performed its duties in a proper and legitimate way. Simply put, it is the ability of the government to honestly and justly administer the state and the private sector activities that impinge on citizens’ lives. It enables citizens to acquire opportunities to secure their basic needs through an access to markets, assets, economic goods and properly regulated institutions so that the poor and deprived sections of the society can realize their potential. Dev Raj Dahal says that "for good governance, those in office, especially the elected ones, must represent the concerns, values and the needs of the citizenry they serve. In this sense, political leaders must have the vision to outline their goals and make the government nibble in the right direction.

Good governance is also associated with encouragement of participatory democracy, local leadership, civil society and decentralization of power to the grassroots. Local capacity building, thus, becomes its essence, which mainly focuses on the maximum participation of the local people at their entire decision-making process and generating all kinds of capacities for the all-round development of their locality.

Thus, good governance should not be considered as a "luxury", but as a "vital necessity for development". It should be "essentially purposive and distinguished from order, which does not require conscious purpose or intention". Order can exist without governance, but governance requires some form of order". It also means a human aggregate made of people’s representatives who act together on a collective task of public welfare.

The attainment of good governance has been a challenging task for politicians, officials, parliamentarians, development planners, decision-makers and so on. There have been lengthy debates regarding its achievement. In fact, it is a long and continuous process, which may not be attained in decades, even in centuries either. All countries of the world have their own experiences in this regard. In order to attain it in a real sense, it is always important to bring comprehensive ideas and values of the grassroots institutions to press upon the policy priority of the government. Working with local leadership can help identify problems and formulate plans necessary for local development. This mean governance has to strive for local capacity building so that the development becomes self-sustaining.

In sum, good governance denotes political and bureaucratic accountability, responsibility, legitimacy and transparency; fair and reliable judicial system, freedom of information and expression, efficient public sector management and so on. Visionary leadership, effective decentralization, efficient capacity building process and popular participation are some other significant features of good governance,

Prospects for Good Governance: Good governance is a matter of concern for all the countries of the world; but in practice, very few of them have achieved it. The following paragraphs explain the nature and scope of good governance in Nepal.

With the restoration of multi party democracy in 1990 and promulgation of the constitution of Nepal, the prospects for good governance have widened. The constitutional and legal provisions make a greater room for it. Under the new political set up, the ultimate source of power is the people. The constitution provides for social and political pluralism, economic justice, adult franchise, parliamentary system, constitutional monarchy and observance of the rule of law. Similarly, it has also provided for liberalization, basic human and fundamental rights including the right to constitutional remedy.

The constitution in its Directive Principles and Policies of the State has mentioned some specific responsibilities for the state. Art 25.1 has outlined the features of a welfare state.

Under the present dispensation, the government is accountable to the elected parliament; it must answer questions about its policies, which may ultimately be repudiated by parliament since the constitution recognizes the people as the ultimate source of power. Similarly the constitution has provided for such constitutional bodies as Commission for the Investigation of the Abuse of Authority-CIAA-which deals with the inquiries and investigations on misuse of authority or corrupt deeds by a person holding high public office.

Transparency is yet another aspect of good governance. The quality of good governance is largely determined by the public access to government information. It has been considered as the nerve of the government. Except for such knowledge that has to be kept secret according to law, it is within the constitutional right of a citizen to demand for information relating to a matter of public interest, and it is the constitutional duties of the public authorities to supply the information accurately, although such information is utilized by the so-called taatha baatha-elite classes only; the illiterate, poor and the marginalized have no access to it.

Compared to that in the past, the present constitutional set up provides for a sound basis for transparent governance. Internally, the Nepalese have made the system transparent by including the right to information in the constitution. The concept of independent media has been accepted although in practice the government owned media are not so open and they disseminate little and limited information.

Unquestionably, the movement of 1990 has brought bout significant changes in Nepali politics. But, the country is still facing a number of challenges for achieving good governance. There are several impediments, for instance, geopolitical situation, poverty-ridden economy and traditional social structure. Other factors such as social justice, modernization, fair and competitive political and economic systems, cultured citizens, rule of law, impartial elections, people oriented independent judiciary, and sound party system are also yet to appear. Though the country is moving toward democratic process, a large section of Nepali mass is still far away from the mainstream politics. More over, the basic needs of the majority of people still remain neglected. They are not provided drinking water, health services and other basic needs, viz. free and compulsory education up to higher secondary level, efficient transportation, market and irrigation facilities, seeds and fertilizers, modern agri equipment and technical know-how, live stock development and sole ownership of land. When the government pays scant attention to such problems, how can we expect good governance in the country? Adequate mechanisms to resolve such issues have to be immediately developed.

In a country like Nepal, good governance can be achieved if political parties and elected legislature play their roles responsibly. Sound functioning of the party system and visionary political leadership can create positive environment for good governance. Since 1990, except a few, almost all the political parties have enjoyed power in running the government but there are hardly any significant changes in the society. On the contrary, their unhealthy, undemocratic and un-parliamentary practices have created confusion, contradictions and mismanagement of governance. In fact, good governance can be gauged from the accountability of political leadership toward the electorate in delivering services to them. Today, almost all the political parties are suffering from factionalism and groupism, which are not based on policy matters rather confined to individual interests mainly for capturing power. Thus, their compromises and accommodations in power politics have not helped democratic consolidation for national development, rather have brought in instability and uncertainty in the country. This, in turn, has led to further disparities between the privileged and underprivileged, powerful and powerless, backward and forward, elite and common man, and majority and minority, resulting in acute confusion in the body politic.

In the past ten years, neither the politicians nor the bureaucrats or any other person holding high public offices have been punished on charges of corruption or misuse of authority. The result is that politics has become a quick-money making business devoid of risks. There are many instances of politicians and bureaucrats who have become multi-millionaires during this short period. Further, they are promoters and protectors of smugglers, hoarders, traffickers and so on. This is the reason why more and more people are demonstrating their dissatisfaction over the system and the functioning of the government.

The sit-down and the stand-up orders coming from the Brettenwood and other international financial institutions through hotline and their acceptance by our leaders have virtually turned them blind, deaf and dumb in most sensitive issues. They have become the most trusted security guards of the interests of the international financial institutions, which has adversely affected the fundamental values of good governance. The concept of good governance in Nepal lies only in documents.

In order to cope with these challenges a number of suggestions can be made. The effective functioning of political parties, elected parliament and bureaucracy as the instruments of good governance is a prerequisite in this respect.

The political parties must be accountable to the people and should be embedded in the society. Effective democratic parliamentary culture should be included among them so as to perform the role of effective interest articulation, aggregation, and communication. Moreover, for their sound functioning, a national consensus on most sensitive and important issues, including upon good governance, should be developed among them. Their candidates for parliamentary elections should be selected by the ordinary members of the party in constituency, and not by a handful of top leaders. This will result in intra party democracy and also pave the way for an emergence of new leadership in the party.

The size of the cabinet should not be large; it should be determined by the nature and volume of government business and not by political expediency. It should be rather fixed by law.

The parliamentarians must not interfere with the functions of such public institutions as bureaucracy, army and police. They must be free to enjoy their pay, perks and facilities without hindrance or inhibition. The political neutrality of bureaucracy, courts, academic and other non-political institutions should strictly be maintained first by government and followed by all the political parties.

The Public Service Commission-PSC- should be effective in performing its duties. The role of constitutional bodies like EC and AG, Attorney General and that of PAC should be strengthened so that they may perform their respective functions effectively.

The government should be strictly responsible to the people and should provide goods and services to them, particularly to the rural poor and the marginalized ones; and it should try to reduce the gender inequality. Effective measures should be undertaken so as to check corruption and the abuse of public authority, criminalization of politics and politicization of crime. The increasing role of money, muscle and Mafia should be sincerely discouraged.

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