I appealed the US to assist Nepal in creating jobs

Ravi Bhakta Shrestha, Ex-Minister, Nepal

My short stint in Prime Minister Lokendra Bahadur Chand’s cabinet has remained a mixed one. It is a mixed one in the sense that I experienced both the facets of my duties as a minister. The fact is that if a minister wishes to perform his duties and remains honest towards his nation and the people, he can do so very easily and that too very effectively.

I did so while being in the ministry. As a tourism minister, I initiated contacts with various countries and managed RNAC flights to those countries. For example, Malaysia, is now a destination wherein Nepali workers have begun occupying jobs and been sending money back to their country.

Martin Air has begun landing in Kathmandu. It was my effort.

When I am not in the ministry at the moment, what I think is that a minister if acts promptly and takes appropriate decisions on time, the nation benefits immensely. Since I was a man from the business sector, I knew many entrepreneurs from the travel-trade sector. As and when personalities from this sector approached me on matters related to Nepal’s expanded links with other friendly countries, I took up their matter seriously and supported them considering the benefit of the nation.

The Nepali bureaucracy is the one, which you can’t withstand. It is terrible to deal with the bureaucracy. It is not only junk but also lethargic of the first order. But one can’t move without having their support. At best, I at times bulldozed my decisions on them for I thought that whatever I’m doing was in the interest of the country and its people.

Bureaucracy must be revamped if the country were to move.

I some times think that when I could do so many things in my short tenure at the ministry, why my predecessors in the same ministry did not do much what they could have easily done?

Let me narrate you one story.

Happily enough, when Premier Deuba was on a tour to the United States, I too accompanied him as the FNCCI President. I recall, it was a meeting at the House Committee where the Nepali dignitary provided his logic for receiving US assistance. When it was time to talk on the business, Deuba told the audience that since he had FNCCI President with him hence Mr. Shrestha would be the best person to talk on that topic.

I bluntly appealed the US side that if they wished to see the Maoists insurgency receding in Nepal, the US must allow Nepali garments industry a sort of free quota and assist also in expanding the industry. This would mean that a good number of unemployed Nepali youths would then get jobs in the factories and that might force them to think twice prior to joining the insurgency. This idea was applauded then because it was purely related with the creation of jobs in the country.

Now let me talk on our own politics and leaders. I am surprised to notice the negligence of our leaders towards the real issues confronting the lay men. Why they every time they come to the streets to secure their seats in power? Can’t they come to the streets in defiance of the Maoists’ sponsored Bundhs and closures? Don’t they know that such sporadic closures create artificial shortages of consumer goods and it is the lay men who ultimately feel the brunt of such wild closures.

I wish the political leaders too agitated against the Maoists bundhs. But they don’t. Why?

Only recently, the producers of sugarcane bought at low prices from the farmers but managed to sell the sugar at higher prices forming a cartel. This is utterly objectionable.

What I have been saying of late is that not all businessmen were sacrosanct. We too have bad apples in our sector. Those who have been engaged in such nefarious acts must be brought to book and save the image of the business community.

Based on a tête-à-tête with the author last week at his Office in Kamaladi, Kathmandu-chief editor.

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