By Our Reporter
After a long gap, main opposition leader KP Sharma Oli addressed the meeting of the House of Representatives on Tuesday.
In his nearly two-hour speech, he heavily criticised the government and NC leaders while he also clarified some questions targeted at him. He tried his best to convince the House that he was not involved in agreeing with the State Partnership Programme (SPP) of the US government and that no corruption was committed while purchasing medical goods to control the spread of COVID-19 in 2020.
Oli asked Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba to bring the facts about the State Partnership Programmes (SPP) of the US to the House and conduct an investigation into the Omni (medical goods purchase) scam.
“SPP is a serious matter and the government can’t escape by pointing fingers at others. I ask the Prime Minister to bring the truth about the SPP,” Oli said while addressing the meeting of the House of Representatives. Prime Minister Deuba was also present in the House when the opposition leader asked him to bring the truth about the SPP to the House.
Oli claimed that no document was signed for participation in the SPP in his direction. “Neither the government nor I myself had agreed for the SPP during my tenure. I challenge the government to bring out the truth about SPP instead of spreading false information among people,” he added.
According to him, the Nepal Army talked to the US envoy in Nepal on September 10, 2015, some days before the Constitution was promulgated on September 20, 2015. Nobody cared about the issue afterwards and the issue again became the hot cake after a report published in 2020 declaring that Nepal was a part of SPP.
“The government agreed to participate in SPP on September 23. 2015, and it is not necessary to tell who was leading the government at the time,” he said. He also said the Defense Ministry agreed and sent a letter to the Nepal Army on Sept.30, 2015. The army then talked with the diplomats of the US embassy on Oct.15, 2015. “Why the army corresponded with US envoys without convincing the then government, I don’t know,” he added.
Oli further said that he had stopped the participation of the country in SPP in 2020 when he was leading the government by forming a secretary-level committee. Stating that fake letters were circulated to defame him, Secretary-level said “Bring any authentic letter, order, or any documents if I had agreed for the SPP in the parliament.”
Oli also said a parliamentary inquiry should be held into the issue of the unauthorised persons entering the ministry and making changes in the budget. “A parliamentary committee should be formed to investigate this and its report should come to the esteemed parliament,” he said.
He accused the government of promoting corruption and bad governance in the name of maintaining unity among the ruling coalition parties.
CoAS returns home, PM Deuba visiting the US
Chief of the Army Staff (CoAS) General Prabhu Ram Sharma returned home from an official visit to the United States of America, Lebanon and Syria Sunday night.
Now Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba is planning to fly to the USA. He will probably fly to the USA next week.
However, it is not known what agenda he will have during the visit after the government decided to scrap the controversial State Partnership Programme of the USA.
Earlier, PM Deuba was expected to nod to the SPP during his US trip. But when the political parties, even a section of the Nepali Congress, and the general people strongly oppose Nepal’s plan to be a part of the SPP, the government recently decided to not accept the SPP.
However, the government has not sent any letter to the USA regarding its decision not to participate in the SPP. As such, it won’t be a surprise if the PM cancels his visit this month, because he will be visiting the US in September to address the UN General Assembly.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) on Sunday said that Nepal was yet to send the decision of the government not to participate in the State Partnership Programme (SPP) of the United States of America (USA).
Sewa Lamsal, Spokesperson for the MoFA, was recently quoted by local dailies that the ministry has received the decision on the SPP, and is currently studying the decision of the government.
She maintained that since the earlier correspondences were not made by the ministry, it is gathering information and studying the matter. We need to understand the matter before we send the decision to the USA, she said.
The Nepali Army had requested the USA through the Embassy of the latter in Kathmandu in 2015 and 2017, and Nepal was included in the programme in 2019. However, owing to the recent protests against the programme, the government has decided to inform the USA that it would not participate in it.
About a couple of weeks ago, the International Relations Committee of the House of Representatives had directed the government of Nepal to inform the US government about Nepal’s non-engagement in the programme.
When the foreign ministry said it has not sent the letter, the Home Ministry on the other hand said the letter was sent. These contradictory statements of the two ministries regarding the letter of the SPP rejection have confused the people while at the same time this case has proved how the ministries and other government bodies tend to bypass the foreign ministry while dealing with international issues. It is a policy fault of the government, otherwise, every international correspondence and dealing should be done only through the foreign ministry.
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