On/Off the Record
By P.R. Pradhan
In the eye of the commoners, politics is a business without investment. Moreover, politics is a profit earning business having no risk of a loss. Except for some exceptions, the main job of the political leaders is to carry files of the businessmen and brokers and implement them by influencing the ministers and government officials or say even by sharing the profit with the ministers and others in the group.
Once when you plan to contest an election, businessmen and brokers appear to provide financial support to you for your election campaign. If you will win the election, then they will hand over some files and provide money for your monthly expenses with the condition that you will get the final instalment of a huge amount after accomplishing the task or say approving the file. As a politician, your job will be to roam around different ministries for approving the file handed over by the business agent. Finally, you will become a business agent rather than a politician. This is the Nepali scenario.
The perversion has reached the extent that the ministers and prime ministers have also become business agents rather than a politician. The cabinet of ministers is found taking many controversial cabinet decisions related to profit and commission. The Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority has also objected to such cabinet decisions saying that they are a policy-based corruption. But the corrupt political leaders and high-level officials never listen to the CIAA as they themselves are the agent of the businessmen.
The Lalita Niwas land scam in Baluatar is an example that how such a valuable government property just behind the chief executive’s official residence was sold down! Without the involvement of influential leaders and ministers, the scam could not become successful. The government investigation team has found the involvement of the then prime ministers Baburam Bhattarai and Madhav Nepal, then minister Bijaya Gachhadar and many senior and junior officials. The case is under the Central Investigation Bureau of the Nepal Police and waiting for further action from the government but the government has not given a green signal.
The court too is not aloof from the business deal or say setting! Just recently, senior advocate Shambhu Thapa, at a meeting with Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, had disclosed that how a match-fixing was made by the former by ousting the two judges assigned by the chief justice in the constitutional bench. The bench, under the influence of those two new judges assigned in the constitutional bench after ousting of the previous two judges, had given the verdict to assign Deuba as the prime minister. Shambhu Thapa has confirmed that how he had fixed a setting in the court.
Maoist Center chair Pushpakamal Dahal has publicly said that the judiciary had favoured the legislature, therefore, the legislature has to pay back the favour for the judiciary. It is clear that the court had favoured the five-party alliance to form the present government.
The above are examples that how our political leaders are involved in such dirty games for power!
The UML didn’t allow running the last session of the House of Representatives demanding action from the Speaker against those 10 MPs ousted from the UML party. Again, the next House session has been summoned from 14 December. UML chair K.P. Sharma Oli has already warned that his party will continue to disrupt the House session. In fact, there is a political deadlock. The only solution is to seek people’s fresh mandate rather than allowing the ministers to loot the nation.
Along with the change of the guard, an unnatural alliance government has been formed in the center. Along with the change in the federation, the parties in the alliance have formed their governments in provinces on the basis of sharing power turn by turn. Normally, the provincial governments are comprised of seven ministries but now, the Bagmati Provincial Government is expanded to a 14 member cabinet. In other provinces also, the trend of splitting the ministries and assigning new ministers have been done to save the post of the chief ministers. Altogether, in seven provinces, 20 new ministries have been created. According to a report, it will cost one billion rupees per year to run one ministry. In this way, the government is expending 20 billion rupees for the operation of the additional 20 ministries in seven provinces. Such a practice is no more than the daylight loot on the government coffer. In other words, the politicians have become the looters.
In 1989, on the eve of people’s movement 1, we could see Girija Prasad Koirala walking on the road. Overnight, he became a multi-billionaire. His daughter Sujata is a multi-billionaire having no source of income.
We have seen K.P. Sharma Oli in slipper when he was first elected a member of the House of Representatives. He was a thin person at that time. Today, we can see Balkot Durwar. His earnings are not transparent.
Pushpakamal Dahal’s expenditure per month is above 30 million rupees. His daughters’ houses are not less than the Rana palaces. Baburam Bhattarai had once said that he is paying the house rent worth above one hundred thousand rupees from the earnings made through his architect design works. Very doubtful!
If investigated, none of the leaders of the day can produce the source of income, but we are unable to do it. It seems we are happy to see the prosperous and luxurious life of our leaders!
Even talking about the next generation leaders, they are seen as more corrupt than their seniors. Considering their future potentials, foreigners, especially the Indians and Westerners have already started to invest in them. During the devastating earthquake in Nepal, Gagan Thapa had received several trucks of relief materials to distribute in his electoral constituency. Sunil Thapa, presently in the Nepali Congress, had also received several trucks of relief materials from the Indian Embassy to distribute them in his electoral constituency.
Can the two Thapas dare to speak against the Indian encroachment in Nepal’s territory? Did we hear any words from them against the killing of Jaayasingh Dhami, a Nepali citizen, by the Indian border security force?
The new generation leaders are fond of wearing branded watches, branded clothes and very much fond of visiting foreign countries. Foreigners know their psychology better. After all, there is not a little space to hope from them.
When looters become leaders, what will be the fate of the nation that we are witnessing in our own country!
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