By Shanker Man Singh
Jut to recapitulate, Prime Minister Pushpakamal Dahal called the secretaries of all ministries and agencies in 2079 BS after 9 days of appointment and gave 27 instructions in 30 points. However, even after 11 months, the secretaries did not work according to the instructions, expressing dissatisfaction with the program, saying, “When I was giving instructions to the secretaries for the first time, I tried to present them concretely.” Looking at the results, it was not encouraging, it was disappointing”, the PM said, ‘It could not go forward as it was said.’
At the same time, after the appointment of the PM for the third time, full support was expected from the civil administration and government machinery involved in the program. Since the bureaucracy is a permanent government, the secretaries were expected to fully use their experience, qualifications, and abilities and efficiently fulfill their responsibilities. However, after a year, the PM’s trust in the employees has been confirmed by this impression. PM Dahal complained that in 11 months, he did not get ‘performance’ and support from the staff as expected. “Nepal’s administration system is capable, efficient, professional, and competitive, but the results are not satisfactory,” he said and questioned, “Where is the harmony!”
Interpretation and implementation of the law focus the state’s attention on helping the common man to read, understand, communicate, and implement the law.
We know that citizens can often be confused by state laws if they are not clear. The extent to which state officials must overcome what some experts describe as the ‘ambiguity’ of the state, the extreme ‘unreadability’ of the state’s rules and regulations. Importantly, this struggle with illegalities stems not from some lack of ability to understand the law on the part of employees, but rather from the practice of making it.
As many have noted, illegality is not the exception but rather the most important aspect of the way the rules or laws are enforced. It was expected that the 30-point directives of the current PM and the common minimum program of the political parties of the government could reverse the well-known thesis in modern “statecraft” as an exercise in clarity, but it did not happen. Personnel administration in Nepal traces this form of governance to what is called Kagaji Raj or government by paper. It was through an incredibly complex and extensive system of writing and reporting that the ruling authority of the home government was maintained in Nepal.
The establishment of a large development staff administration that flows through development plans, programs, projects, and, more recently, legislation can add to the complexity. Development is embedded not only in state institutions but also in what informants describe as ‘sarkari kultur‘ (government/state culture). PM Dahal said in a secretarial meeting about 11 months ago, “Since you are the permanent government of the state, you have a lot of experience. The development expenditure is only 11 percent as the financial year is half over. What are the reasons for not being able to spend on development? Who is responsible? If the cause is not found and solved now, when will it be done? If there is a problem at the policy level, come up with fact-based reform proposals. However, the weaknesses seen in the implementation can no longer be ignored.
On the one hand, the revenue is not raised according to the target, there is no capital expenditure, on the other hand, the expenditure is also unsustainable and there is no wastage. It is necessary to be sensitive about it. The current progress in this regard did not meet this expectation The concerned ministry was not serious about the instructions given by the PM to create an environment for investment in industry and business by taking the private sector into confidence.
After the problems of the economy did not end, the PM himself proceeded to discuss with the stakeholders including the private sector.
The PM had instructed to improve the situation of many hassles and long queues even when going to pay taxes. The private sector complains that the tax payment system has not been improved during this period even though the Customs and Internal Revenue Department has made a plan. Even though the PM asked the National Planning Commission to make a plan to speed up the pace of big projects, it did not seem to have any effect.
The work that the government calls transformative, including projects of national pride, is slow.
Similarly, even though the PM asked to link the work of officials who take responsibility for development projects but are unable to work with performance evaluation, there is no record that anyone was punished and rewarded based on the evaluation.
In particular, the directives given to prevent a shortage in the supply of daily consumer goods, to ensure the quality of consumer goods and to put an end to things like profiteering, the black market, the creation of artificial scarcity and regular marketing did not seem to have any effect.
The government could not manage the increase in the prices of onions and potatoes due to the increase in the prices of sugar, onions and potatoes during the showing period. The instructions given to eliminate the situation where the development projects were not completed for years and the structures that were built were not put into operation and needed to be repaired did not work.
After the promulgation of the new constitution in 2072, the state entered into federalism and completed the three-level elections and completed one term, and this government was formed from the second general election.
After the implementation of federalism, there was hope that people would get easy services at their doorsteps, local people would participate in development, development plans would become objective, quality development would be built and people would get the results of development quickly. However, our performance in the last 5 years was not satisfactory. Even now, it has become easier to get a passport, although it is easier than expected to get a national identity card, it is still a pain.
Nepalis do not have a satisfactory answer to the question of why an identity card is necessary. One has to wait for years to even get a driver’s license. There are piles of non-working employees in the ministries and departments, but there is a lack of manpower at the municipality level which provides basic services to the people and the people are deprived of services. This situation must end. Since approximately one-third of the staff positions are vacant at the provincial and local levels, there is a shortage of manpower and the service flow and development are affected. Therefore, the Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration should arrange for the provision of manpower at the provincial and local levels by reducing the unnecessary tariffs of the federal government agencies for immediate staffing at the provincial and local levels.
Where did the instructions go? The instructions given to prepare for the submission of the Federal Civil Code to the next Parliament should be reviewed.
Civil service reform efforts have addressed its roles and functions, its organizational structure and working methods, its human resource systems, and its governance. Despite many efforts, there are many weaknesses in the civil service including a low level of motivation of civil servants. The whole range of government work affects human life because of the administrative machinery. Unnecessary expansion in the number of government agencies and their employees. Multiple layers in the decision-making process, weak mechanisms to hold individual officials accountable, challenges and inability to effectively embrace new technologies, lack of accountability to citizens, and the lack of decentralization of power required by officials below regional offices also appear to be a problem.
As far as the downside is concerned, civil servants prefer to work in convenient locations and centres; it is even more difficult for civil servants to stay at the center and serve at the local level.
In Kathmandu, the main purpose of the job is to get a job, build a house and educate children. There has been some transfer, especially to the districts and provinces, but it has not been done at the expected level.
Since the local level employees are only in the district headquarters, service delivery and other development initiatives of the region have been seriously affected. The pace of federalization is slow, the administrative culture is not performance-oriented; incentives are limited and not fully integrated into performance, and accountability is far from over.
Those closed people of the ruling political party are appointed to government positions, after the ruler leaves, the employees also leave and the new system is the spoils system (patronage).
Eleven months ago, the PM mentioned in his instructions with priority, that the revenue collection has failed. He had asked to bring fact-based reform proposals if there was a problem at the policy level in revenue collection.
After finding it difficult to meet current expenses from the revenue, the Council of Ministers formed a high-level recommendation committee on tax system reform. Even when Nepal has been transformed into a federal political system, there seems to be an illusion of adopting an integrated system of bureaucratic organization and accountability. Contrary to the principle of federalism, the central government recruits civil servants for all levels of government. The central government envisages a strict system of discipline and controls the bureaucracy at all levels.
Although the country ran on a unitary state system by accepting the centralized bureaucracy during the period, it is acceptable and practical as the state has embraced federal politics. Both state and local governments should have authority and autonomy, and government employees should be able to work in their areas of responsibility.
Civil servants seem to favor the responsibility of central bodies to maintain their administrative control and protect their interests. However, maintaining the overall dominance of government employees at the cost of the rights of elected representatives is a violation of the spirit of federalism and the administrative restructuring of the state.
If the bureaucracy is not made result-oriented, the structural and executive systems of the state and local levels will not make any sense to the common people. In fact, infrastructure is essential to make the country tech-friendly. First of all, comes the matter of physical infrastructure being implemented by the Nepal Telecommunication Authority. Telecommunication service providers deposit two percent of their annual income in the rural telecommunication development fund of the authority. The authority then uses the funds to expand physical infrastructure across the country. The authority is also busy with providing 4G services in places where it is difficult to build physical infrastructure, including the two leading mobile service providers in the country, Nepal Telecom and Ncell.
The private sector is a major partner in the development of information technology. In every country, the government plays the role of guardian.
Government policies that make work difficult should be discussed, but there is a communication gap between the government and the private sector. What is the private sector trying to do and how is the government facilitating it? How can we protect these companies? This should be discussed.
Even if there is some ease in immigration, there should not be a situation where the service users are affected by the behavior and service delivery of the government base, where the daily work of the citizens including goods, water supply, electricity, transportation, tax, district administration, police, labor, agriculture, passport, is done.
There is much room for improvement in the PM’s recent speech in this regard.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect People’s Review’s editorial stance.
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