By Our Reporter

Our leaders always talk about curbing corruption but the country has fallen into the group of the most corrupt nations in the globe.

The international report on corruption in 2024 includes the tenure of the Maoist Center chair Pushpakamal Dahal and UML chair K.P. Sharma Oli as the prime minister in the country. Interestingly, the present coalition government was formed with a seven-point agreement and the first point of the agreement was to restore good governance by curbing corruption. Nevertheless, corruption has not been curbed.

Nepal's international image has been constantly tarnished by the indifference of all three organs of the state, the executive, the judiciary and the legislature, to control corruption and maintain good governance. According to the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) of Transparency International, an international organization that monitors corruption and good governance, Nepal has not been able to come out of the list of most corrupt countries.

Nepal scored 35 out of 100 points in the Transparency Report 2023 on good governance. According to the 2024 report, Nepal's rank has fallen to only 34 points. Transparency has been including those who score less than 50 points out of 100 in the list of countries with the most corruption. Nepal is ranked 107th out of 180 countries in the survey. Last year it was 108.

The CPI has said that the state has not achieved any tangible achievement in improving the level of governance in Nepal.

Madankrishna Sharma, chairman of Transparency Nepal, said that despite the country going to a federal democratic republic and the constitution being issued accordingly and the governance system being run by a three-tier government, there has been no improvement in good governance.

Even after about eight years of the three-tier government since the constitution of democratic Nepal came into effect in 2072, there does not seem to be any success in reducing corruption in Nepal, Sharma said while releasing the report on Nepal on Tuesday.

He noted, "It is imperative to improve this situation, for which it is necessary to increase the political sector's commitment to morality, take fair action on bribery and corruption in the government sector, ensure clean judicial processes and take effective steps to control corruption related to the business sector."