By P. Kharel
Questioning NPC
Prime Minister Oli not long ago questioned the National Planning Commission’s relevance and utility. For an answer, he should have asked his Finance Minister Dr. Yuba Raj Khatiwada who has cruised through all the plum posts NPC vice-chairmanship through Nepal Rastra Bank governorship before being catapulted to the Ministry of Finance as minister in charge.
In the past, Dr. Badri Prasad Shrestha, Dr. Harka Gurung, Dr. Mohan Man Sainju and Dr. Ratna Shumsher Rana served the NPC. Their credentials were acknowledged by the cross-section of the political spectrum. With the restoration of the multiparty system in the spring of 1990, things took a turn for the bad. NPC members were picked on the basis of “experts” considered to be close to the prime minister of the day or someone whose recommendation would work.
By and large, the manner in which these “experts” made it to the NPC put them in poor light before petty party leaders. They knocked at the doors of influential people who could put a word in their favour to the ultimate man who could give the covetous nod. No wonder, Oli berates “intellectuals” regularly whenever he finds his skin too thin for criticism.
Consulting those with admired experience infuses new ideas for effective approaches, apart from cautioning against factors that could drag an undertaking down the drain. Sharing does not do anyone bad. Confining oneself to an extremely limited few in a country, where there has always been constant complaint about expertise shortage, sits reckless.
But not only Oli but also his finance minister are too hard pressed for sparing time to even senior members of Nepal Communist Party (NCP). Bharat Mohan Adhikary is baffled by the way Khatiwada rebuffed his request for some time in connection with offering suggestions. He complained to a news media that his request for an appointment too went unheeded. After all, Adhikary is labeled as belonging to “Madhav Kumar Nepal’s faction”. And to think that it was Adhikary’s budget proposal in 1994 that drew such appreciation for the first communist government.
Unlucky Lucky Sherpa
Ambassador Lucky Sherpa is under investigation after her former motor vehicle driver accused her of human trafficking. Predictably, she denied having done anything wrong. When summoned home to explain herself at the foreign affairs ministry, she is learnt to have called on all her sponsors and patrons who had backed her for the diplomatic job at Nepal’s embassy in Australia.
A section in the communist party thinks she is expendable and hence making her recall home permanently would aid the organisation’s effort at damage control. The same section, however, dare not raise the issue of a woman member of the Constituent Assembly-Legislature, who hailed from a big business house and accused a team of CPN (UML) leaders who are alleged to have been bribed for obtaining nomination to the august house. No investigation was ordered, as the accused were too big to be booked for such probe. The accused did not even dare deny the charges.
It is an open secret that people, who make fortunes through dubious means, get away with anything means as long they have the money to buy their way in or out. Many ambassadorial appointments, according to numerous news reports and analysts, have gone on sale to the highest bidders among those with close access to the influential ones who are able to clinch the issue in favour of the ones they decide to side with.
One does not know for sure how exactly Ms Lucky made it to Australia but those who recommended her name could answer, that is, if they have the courage to own up their responsibility. However, knowing that they have been done such business so often without even a scratch for the wrong choices at the cost of the nation’s international image rolling down the hill so pracariously, due public explanation would be too much to expect from them.
Popular perception
During the Panchayat decades, Indian government officials always claimed to have “very good people-to-people contact” with Nepalese, and that it was the nature of Nepal’s partyless system that clashed with the “democratic” dispensation in India. Needless to over-emphasise that New Delhi has had very good relationship with numerous authoritarian regimes and communist rulers down the decades since its independence from British colonists in 1947.
Now, Pakistanis have begun coming out with their own perception of rapport with people in India. At various forums, their elites point out that their people shared “excellent rapport with Muslims in India”. They blame Indian bureaucrats and political leaders who were never reconciled to Pakistan’s sovereign, independent identity, as reflected in their persistent policy of persecuting Pakistan.
Moreover, uninterrupted multiparty element in India’s political system had been its exclusive claim to full-fledged democracy. That too no longer works, with even its closest allies Bhutan and the Maldives having introduced political parties.
Without comment
Nepali Congress leader Bipin Koirala, in Nawachetana.com: “This republic [in Nepal] came as a sponsored republic… During the king’s time, there was only one power centre; now every party has eight-ten power centres.”
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