This corruption

While a majority of the population has hand to mouth problem each day in Nepal, the Nepalese ministers housed in Singh Durbar spend luxurious lives since the day they become ministers and retire from the post. Even after the departure from the ministerial posts, not very surprisingly therefore, the once upon a time ministers continue to spend their days and nights as if they continue to be ministers. There is no change in their standard of living even after their retirement which should in effect have been just the otherwise. To become a minister in Nepal means amassing wealth from the nation's exchequer an astronomical amount that would take care of the minister's three to four generations to come. Thanks the laxity of the CIAA that these ministers, even if acknowledged corrupt by the civic society, appear in social and political gatherings only to preach sermons to those who come to listen to them. While making such forceful lectures, the listeners forget for a while that it is these bad apples that have corrupted the entire system to the extent that the system itself has become the victim of their corrupt practices. In effect, democratic system in Nepal has become synonymous to corruption and amassing wealth by any means, legal or otherwise while being in the power corridor.

A deplorable news revealed by the Nepali media had it that this Dashain the Nepali ministers in the Deuba cabinet managed some how or the other some forty two lakhs equivalent to a staggering figure of sixty-thousand dollars plus to be distributed amongst themselves and their hangers-on in their respective political paraphernalia. Thanks that the media discovered it or else the whole hair raising event would have gone to the dogs. The explanation furnished by the men who pocketed the amount was that the government has some leverage on certain amount to be distributed amongst those who need the most. The fact is that each and every government in the world allocates certain amounts that are justifiably distributed among those poor and the browbeaten or the ailing citizens who need some assistance to keep their lives moving. However, in this particular case, none of the ministers or for that matter their relatives or even the party-men-the real beneficiaries- were neither ailing nor were poor in its strictest sense of the term. The fact is that the men who pocketed the sum were all by all means well off personalities of the nation who instead of taking money from the government's coffer could have dispersed amounts to their fellow citizens from their privately earned money. They did not do so because they wanted additional amount to enjoy the fiesta at the cost of those who in effect should have received the money.

The rationalization provided by the men in the government was just bizarre and deplorable.

Should this mean that being in government were a license to squeeze the national exchequer and that too exceeding the limits of the laws which stipulates the conditions on which such amounts could be distributed. The irony is that the men who pocketed the money this round of the Dashain festivals did commit a blunder in that they converged to effect certain changes in the laws regulating such distributions so that the distribution could not be challenged in any court of the land.

The civil society members and a section of the Nepali press did act on time. However, the recipients of the amounts illegally are still moving scot-free. They still steal the political show. They continue to be honored and respected in the society wherein they live. The court is silent. The media apparently has forgotten the episode. The members of the civil society too appear to be in a mood to pack-up the entire humiliating event. The King too is silent. The rest are mere spectators.

Nonetheless, on our part, we have this to say to those who pocketed the amount illegally: Shame! Shame! Poppy Shame!

After all, what else we could do to smarten the image of the beneficiaries of the state-money?

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