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On/Off the Record

By P.R. Pradhan

The revolution and struggle are not enough to become a successful leader, which, we can say from the performance of Nepali political leaders. The leadership should also be abided by sacrifice, dedication, commitment and should remain aloof from nepotism, favouritism and sycophancy. Look at the present leaderships in the ruling and main opposition party – all had struggled for the political change; they had spent years in jail for a political change; they had launched bloody war killing above 17 thousand innocent Nepalis. Today, they are in power and the performance of the government is zero, and the role of the opposition party is also zero.

The communist government which came to the power with the vote of those poor, exploited and deprived people is saying that it cannot offer free treatment to the people, the government is unable to supply fertilizer to the farmers, the government is unable to control market price during the festival time. After all, what the government is doing? Of course, the leaders are busy in quarrelling against each other for the power! The present fight in the ruling party is just a quarrel for “You took much, I need more!” Besides, there is no ideological problem, or say, there is no political ideology among those leaders who had sacrificed a lot in the past.

The government said that it lacks fund and it cannot bear the cost of Covid-19 tests and treatment, therefore, it has asked the government hospitals to charge money from the patients. To recall, when the Covid-19 pandemic was witnessed in Wuhan, China, in December last year, we have produced a series of articles and reports suggesting the government to be prepared to fight against the pandemic. We had, for many times, suggested the government to cut down unnecessary government expenditure and keep concentration on management of medical supplies, quarantine and isolation centres and treatment of the Covid-19 patients. Despite such advises, the government was busy in furnishing the President’s quarter with millions of rupees worth new carpet and furniture, construction of lavish PM’s quarter, gyms house at the ministers’ quarter, construction of new ministers’ quarter, procurement of luxurious vehicles for the people’s representatives, etc..

Each minister has assigned several advisors. This trend is being followed by the provincial governments and also the local governments. The trend of assigning advisors by the PM and ministers started since the introduction of the multiparty democracy in 1989. Now, we can see around half a dozen advisors at the President’s Office, to advise a ceremonial President. The governments earlier to the multiparty democracy were functioning well without advisors, and why the governments in the multiparty democracy cannot function without advisors! Today, advisors have become the extra-powerful group in every ministry. The ministers could assign the government officers as advisors but to give the political appointment to the ministers’ nearer and dearer ones, this post has been created. The advisors are unconstitutional as they have not taken the oath of office. The government officials have passed a very competitive examination conducted by the Public Service Commission. On the other hand, the advisors without facing any such an examination or competition are being assigned directly by the ministers, who mostly are above the secretary’s position. The government expenditure on them is just a waste. The government could save an attractive amount of fund by ending such an unconstitutional provision of assigning advisors. Likewise, the government can function without new vehicles or can use the dumped old vehicles after the maintenance saving an attractive amount of expenditure. Those people’s representatives can survive with the half amount of the salary they are receiving. Especially during the pandemic period, the government could cut down 50 per cent of the salary given to the people’s representative, to raise fund for the Covid treatment. Instead of taking honest measures for treating Covid-19 patients, the government has shifted its responsibility by saying that it has no fund for the treatment!

Of late, on Monday, 9 November, the cabinet after criticism and pressure from all sectors including the Supreme Court and the Parliamentary Committee has decided to provide free service to the Covid-19 patients. Also, the government has announced to cut-down 50 percent salary of the ministers, which is not enough. All the people’s representatives from the federal government to the local organs should be ready to contribute 50 percent of their salary to the Covid-19 control fund to fight against the pandemic.

We could learn from the success history of other countries, unfortunately, none of the political leaders is interested to learn and implement good things that the other countries are doing for the people and the nation. All our leaders are concentrated on personal benefits only.

In the decades-long journalism, we didn’t hear any complaint from the farmers about the scarcity of fertilizer, especially during the Panchayat days. We didn’t know scarcity and price hike of essential commodities in the market. We had experienced 18 months-long economic blocked imposed by India in support of the “people’s movement-1” to replace the Panchayat regime but we never felt scarcity of medicines, petroleum products and other daily essential commodities in the market. Since the adoption of the multiparty democracy, every year, we have witnessed scarcity of fertilizer during the farming season. All the construction projects, during the Panchayat days, were completed on time. Construction contractors were working on time and they would not get any excuse on any delay in completion of the projects. Today, the construction contractors are occupying projects and troubling people and delaying development projects, yet, there is no action against them. In conclusion, we can say that there was rule of law during the so-called autocratic Panchayat regime and today, there is the rule of brokers, smugglers, construction contractors and middlemen.

Every time, we were giving an example of Bihar, India with pride that we were far ahead than the Biharis. Look at the present-day Bihar, it is a well-developed state of India. Bangladesh is a very young country. We cannot compare our economy with Bangladesh. Even if we had adopted the Bangladeshi development model, our economy could have been strong.

Simply, why we have been failed that we have adopted a very expensive political system with the provision of paying a huge amount of salary to the elected people’s representatives. Our political leaders have encouraged youths either to go for a dirty job in foreign countries or to join politics rather than encouraging them to work at the farmhouse or running an industry. Therefore, both the system and the political leaders have been failed in Nepal and they are heading the nation towards bankruptcy and fatal accident.

People’s Review Print Edition