"Relief" to the ministers; illusionary "package" for the people

Dr. Badri Prasad Shrestha—the senior economist turned finance minister is on record to have criticized previous namesake democratic governments for their Himalayan failures in having not been able to provide a positive shape to the national economy and addressing the genuine concerns of the marginalised population of the nation. The man who till the other day used to censure others and used to blame the leaders and the politicians for the continued slide in the national economic scenario now is given the opportunity to prove his political and economic acumen. It is always easy to hurl criticisms onto the heads of the others and that too remaining far from being held responsible.

Nepal is a country where there is no dearth of personalities who could lecture for hours and hours in deriding at others for their supposed failures while being in government. However, when it comes to their own performance on matters related with providing of good governance, they have miserably failed and thus have facilitated the other rival camp to hurl almost same sort of negative comments and thus the process goes on and on. In the whole process, it is the deaf and the dumb citizenry who have to feel the brunt of the mal-performance or for that matter bad governance. The process has been continuing since 1950, to put it mildly.

Nevertheless, Dr. Shrestha too has come up with a "relief package" which is more or less similar to those previous packages which used to be formulated by those governments which ultimately could not deliver. Analysts claim that the governments in the developing countries have made it a custom to lure the common men through the announcement of relief packages which provides "material" relief to the ministers more than for whom it usually is meant for or given to understand. The sum total is that such relief packages meet the same fate and finally it is the people who feel that they were again deceived by yet another set of "'democrats". Beginning Mahesh Acharya, Bharat Mohan Adhikari, Rabindra Nath Sharma and Ram Saran Mahat, to name a few, all meant business and formulated relief-packages the whereabouts of which is very difficult to ascertain. Now it is the turn of Dr. Shrestha to be-fool the lay men for the latter knows that Dr. Shrestha could best devise schemes in the name of the people much the same way his predecessors did in the past but will certainly fail when it came to the implementation of those sacro-sanct packages. Devising schemes and preparing finest proposals is Nepali specialty which was only recently appreciated by one high placed UNICEF official and that too in the very presence of those planners and policy-makers who have remained instrumental in bringing this country to this chaotic state. According to the same official, the Nepali problem was not in devising schemes for the country but in the implementation of the all thus devised for the betterment of the marginalised section of the society. In essence, the implementation part in Nepal is miserable whose corrections appear not in sight if things remain the same. To recall, the gist of the Nepal Development Forum that was held in Kathmandu and Pokhara some time back too had concluded that Nepali development had remained the hostage of inefficient implementation. This means that the international community too wished that Nepal henceforth meant business. The message was made clear then and perhaps continues till todate.

Whether it is Dr. Shrestha or for that matter the Chand government or any other of the same stock or breed, unless there is an effective implementation of the declarations made from Singh Durbar, the country will continue to be under experiment as usual till the end of the Nepali civilization. Now it remains to be seen how this economist turned political man would steer the economy of the country which we suppose must be in a very bad shape. Failing to implement the recently declared relief-packages meant for instant relief would mean that Dr. Shrestha could do no better than his predecessors which would ultimately mean that "relief" went to the ministers and the unidentified/uncertain and even mysterious "packages" were left for the people.

The hotchpotch manner in which the Chand's ministry has been expanded and the personalities chosen to steer the nation perhaps speaks the way the nation will move. Bluntly speaking, the collection of the ministers appears that Chand preferred to collect those who have either been sacked, rejected or even defected from their respective mainstream political parties. A very dangerous game indeed, to say the least.

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