On/Off the Record
By P.R. Pradhan
The Finance Ministry has circulated a notice to all the offices belonging to it for cutting down unnecessary expenses as much as possible. According to the notice, the Ministry has asked for not using electric heaters, using mineral water in the jar instead of bottles, controlling expenditure on petroleum consumption on vehicles including economizing the use of mobil during vehicle maintenance, controlling travel expenses including foreign visits, among others.
Reading such a notice, one cannot stop laughing as to what amount of money can the Ministry save by cutting down such expenses! Nonetheless, this reflects the poor economic situation of the country which the Finance Ministry has experienced. The Ministry is responsible for managing the income and expenditure account of the country. Certainly, this is an indication that the country is passing through a very poor economic situation.
The only remedy for this disease is scrapping the present political system, which we have been saying from the beginning.
Our leaders introduced seven provinces plus 753 local bodies in foreigners’ interests. The very leaders are now saying that the provincial governments have not been able to justify their significance.
Finance Minister Bishnu Poudel, addressing a commercial bank’s anniversary, said that the country’s economy is passing through a very crucial phase as the country’s revenue is unable to meet the general sector expenditure. This is a serious situation indeed.
Those political leaders enjoying loot-tantra never forget to denounce the Panchayat system as an autocratic system but after the introduction of the multiparty democracy, all kinds of anomalies have been introduced. Except for some exceptions or say, except Lokendra Bahadur Chand and Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, all the prime ministers have been identified as corrupt leaders.
We all are aware that the nation is unable to meet the revenue target as the previous government led by Sher Bahadur Deuba and finance minister Janardan Sharma jointly introduced an organized loot on the government coffer. Revenue collected through essential commodities including sugar and other items has declined remarkably. It is not because imports of sugar declined but because either it was undervalued or it was smuggled to the country. Without the government’s green signal, it is not possible. When a middleman was present on the eve of the presentation of the budget for the present fiscal year, a drama was staged by constituting a parliamentarian probe committee just to give a clean chit to the minister.
Immediately after the 1990 political change, the revolutionary leaders started planned loot in the country. How the government industries gifted by friendly countries were sold away almost free of cost, everybody is aware of it. This trend has not only continued, but of late, the level of corruption has intensified. Now, corruption is taking place by changing government policies. The government monitoring body believes that the number of insurance companies is already high compared to the size of the economic activities. Moreover, the government issued new licenses to run more insurance companies just before the 20 November election. Those corrupt leaders in the government attempted to make money even by selling licenses for operating insurance companies.
A check and balance mechanism is important for smoothly operating the political system by curbing corruption and ending economic anomalies. Instead of empowering such a mechanism, the Nepali “loktantra” has given a license to loot on the government coffer to the political leaders. Of course, there are different corruption control bodies but they are unable to function properly. Instead, such bodies are for giving a clean chit to those top political leaders who are involved in organized loot. On the one hand, the government is staging the drama of controlling unnecessary expenditures, on the other, the government is involved in planned loot.
Presently, some leaders strongly opposing corruption practices, are in key ministries. They have publicly expressed commitment against corruption. It is a testing time for them. If they really want to curb corruption, their efforts should be empowering the corruption control body, but can they do it?
If corruption practice will continue to flourish and if the trend of revenue collection will continue to decline, very soon, the nation’s economy is going to collapse.
Reducing non-productive sector expenditure should be the first job of the government. The government could save a remarkable amount of funds by scrapping the provincial structure and cutting down the number of local bodies. A sustainable political system matching the country’s economy is the need of the day. If we really love this nation, we must scrap the present political system, which is said to be “loktantra” but in practice, it is a loot-tantra!
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