Nepal's civil service is a servile and docile institution that needs

sweeping reforms

-Mr. Achyut B.Rajbhandary

A seasoned civil servant who relentlessly offered his charming years in the service of the nation, Mr. Achyut B. Rajbhandary has his MPA (Master of public Administration) from the University of Pittsburgh. USA. He also completed special studies in the Civil Service System and the Public Sector Management in the U.S.A. . He studied parliamentary procedures in both the Houses of Indian Parliament for nine months and contributed to the initial establishment of Nepalese parliamentary procedures and Secretariat. He worked in the Home Ministry as Under Secretary with responsibility to control and guide the district administration of the country for a period of 5 years. For the next 7 years, he was Joint Secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat, in charge of Administrative Reforms and Personnel. He was Secretary, Ministry of Water and Power for 3 years and during this time implemented many crucial projects such as Kulekhani Hydro-power, Kathmandu Water Supply and Sewerage, Karnali High Dam Investigation, etc. Next, as Secretary, Ministry of forests he brought into application for the first time, the concept of community and private and contractual forests in Nepal.

After retirement from the Nepal Civil Service he was appointed as consultant to the Nepal Administrative Staff Collage for 5 years and Executive Chairman, Nepal Rosin and Turpentine Ltd. for another 6 years. Then he was picked up to work as Member, Administrative Reforms Monitoring Committee for 3 years. In view of his background of the Water Resources Ministry and the public sector management works he was selected to work as World Bank Institutional Expert (Group Leader) to the Water Resources strategies Formulation Project conducted under the National Planning Commission. Currently, he is working as Director, Centre for Studies on Democracy and Good Governance, CSDG, a joint effort of big political parties to consolidate democracy in Nepal.

He was Chairman or Director of half a dozen of Government Corporations. He worked as U.S. AID and UNDP Consultant on different projects of management study or evaluation. He is the author of more than a dozen of published articles on Nepalese public administration. He is decorated with Gorkha Dakshin Bahu class III & II and Trishaktipatta class III.

Last week we approached this versatile gentleman for an exclusive tete-a-tete to which he readily accepted. Below the results-Chief editor.

TGQ1: How do you assess the state of governance in the nation ? What fundamental measures do you suggest to improve it?

Mr. Rajbhandary:  By governance I hope you would agree with me to mean the process of converting state authority to the realization of the needs and interests of the people.   So governance always bears a reference to the people from which the lease of the state authority is got by the elected government and has therefore to be responsive to their demand.  But people in a country can never expect democratic governance from a non-democratic structure and process that is not addressed to the demand side of it.   In Nepal the governance structure has yet remained as before although the political one has been democratized on the face of it.  It is natural therefore that governance should lack people's preferences and ownership in it. There may be some incremental development works within the last ten years, but that is not what good governance should be counted upon.   The main question to be asked is whether and to what extent changes have taken place in the governance system in pursuit of democratic governance. The honest answer to it will be surely a very disappointing one.

Of the many reforms measures one can think of, establishing accountable governance seems to represent the hub.  Accountability in governance is to be achieved by structural, behavioral and process-based changes in the system.  The tall hierarchies in the government Ministries and Departments are ever giving out the tendency of centralizing and monopolizing and being callous about the results and the beneficiaries. It is high time that the hierarchies were broken for fostering independent accountable units charged with final responsibility for results and the choice of the beneficiaries. I don't mean that the structural changes alone will be bring the results. Programs aiming at procedural, behavioral should support these and cultural changes too.

TGQ2: One of the key factors in governance is the role of civil society. Currently, civil society in Nepal seems to be subordinate to political and economic society and therefore, appear weak in articulating the interests of the public.  In this context, how can vibrant civil society in the country be created for democracy consolidation?

Mr. Rajbhandary: Yes, without the control of the demand side of governance, that is, the civic control on governance ( to be counter-posed against  the political control by  parliament )  , good governance would not be forthcoming. But civil society in Nepal is yet vague and nebulous, and, what is more unfortunate, there is no clear state policy for fostering, strengthening and utilizing it in governance structure.  The first and foremost reason for the stunted growth of civil society here is due to mingling the civic organizations promiscuously with others until they have lost all their noble status and purpose and are derogated as organizations of job-seekers, fund-seekers and profit-seekers. So the first step to salvage it will be to enact a Civic Organization Act and segregate, empower and channelize it to enable it to assume the role of what is to be called the civic control on democracy and governance.

TGQ3: As an experienced civil servant of international standing how would you see the prospect for civil service reforms in the country?  What are the critical bottlenecks on the way to reforms and how they can be removed to make civil service efficient, neutral and people-centered?

Mr. Rajbhandary:  The civil service in Nepal by design and tradition is a servile and docile institution that is not suited for the operation of democracy and good governance. Its reforms therefore should take place in terms of making it free, independent and impartial, possessing its own core area of responsibilities towards the Nepalese society. But the problem is that the political authority generally does not get interested in civil service reforms in as much as any such reforms would mean diminishing political authority and monopoly. This is the same thing as the case of promoting civil society.  In such a situation, a triangular institutional effort could be worked out: a special independent body responsible for implementing civil service reforms in the government, the State Management Committee of the House of Representatives to keep surveillance on the implementation of reforms and a civic organization like the CSDG to monitor the progress and sensitize the people on the government 's actions.

TGQ4:  Now you are heading a most powerful body of the country called CSDG manned by important political forces of the country. Please tell us what have been achieved so far and what are your plans for the future?

Mr. Rajbhandary:  The CSDG is entirely the initiative of the General Secretaries of the four major political parties of the country. It is a unique organization in the sense that it is a civic organization working with civic concern and motivation in which the top political leaders have preferred to work together some of their time, away from their respective parties - in an air of retreat - on a sublime task of overviewing and consolidating democracy and governance. It is the country's good luck that such an idea should spark in the leadership amidst their ever-contending power struggle. Basically, the Centre's will be the three-pronged approach. The first is to identify areas where a consensus of opinion needs to be developed among political parties and work for it following a definite agreed procedure. The second will be to develop and manage the collective programme of actions for strengthening democratic institutions. The third type of activities will be to sensitize the people on the issues of democratic development and governance, and create a forum for national dialogue for seeking citizen's directions to the development of democracy. There are a number of programmes listed under each type of activities, such as democratizing political parties, assessing the democratic development of the country, activating the role of civic organizations, securing effective functioning of the democratic institutions, redesigning the public sector, drawing civil society nearer to the government, improving democratic status and capability of the citizens, and so on. We are at present preparing a scheme to assessing the ten years of democracy in Nepal. We are shortly to hold a brain storming seminar  on it  which will then be   followed by  in-depth studies in the problem areas  that might surface up. We have already submitted to the government a consensus report on civil service reforms, accountable governance and  civil service promotion and transfer.  We are given to understand that the Prime Minister has directed the relevant authority to give due consideration to these reports in the government's upcoming civil service reforms program.  We expect the democratic Government to treat the consensus recommendations in a way befitting the nature of this organization. Let us see how they will go about it.

TGQ5: How can newspapers like mine can contribute to your goal and what is your impression of media culture of the country so far?

Mr. Rajbhandary.   As you know media's role in democracy is immense.  As far as the Centre is concerned we have got to get the support of media in sensitizing the people and stimulating public dialogue.    But then putting media into proper perspective has also been Centre's another concern..  As you know media are also part of civil society which is supposed to act in a non- partisan basis prompted by genuine civic interests.  When they fall prey to other (such as political) influences for some reasons that need to be explored and controlled, they fail to play their role, and then not only nation's civil society gets weakened and limping, the whole democratic process would clog.  Media in Nepal generally tend to cling to some center of power or influence, which hinder them to play their true democratic role.  So here is also a case for the Center to study and bring in reforms.  But a newspaper like yours which has a wide international circulation and reputation can still go a longer way in working with this Center in carrying abroad the message about this organization for global exchange of experiences and collaboration.

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