Photo: Internet
By Our Political Analyst
In four and half years after federalism was implemented in the country under the guidance of foreign forces, evidence is in abundance to prove that federalism will add only a financial burden to a crash-crunched country like Nepal. When the people have not felt the presence of the federal government in the last four and half years, the system has only added Rs. 550 billion in foreign loans to the Nepali people.
When all development and administrative tasks are being carried out by the local levels and the central government, the provincial governments and provincial assemblies have been the only place for the political parties to adjust their leaders. But the government has to manage expenses for the assembly members, provincial ministers, chief ministers, their personal staff as well as the government employees. Besides, they have to manage fuel and vehicles for them, not to talk about the meeting allowances and accommodation costs for the 550 assembly members of the seven provinces.
Paying them and managing logistics for a large number of assembly members, ministers and staff have become costly. It is evident from the fact that the foreign debt of Nepal increased to Rs. 994 billion in the fiscal year 2021/22 from the fiscal year 2017/18. The figure of the Nepal Rastra Bank presents an alarming situation in terms of the high expenditure in the unproductive sector. Had federalism not been implemented, the country could have saved billions of rupees which could be spent on building development infrastructure.
The foreign debt went up as the government failed to manage local revenue to meet the increased expenditures. Now that the government is preparing to hold elections, it has to spend extra for the provincial assembly elections.
Even the politicians which served as puppets of foreign powers to introduce the federalism system have now started speaking against the system. If federalism is not fruitful and useful for the country, the politicians should not delay to correct the faulty system before it is too late. Of course, federating a unified tiny country like Nepal itself was a big blunder committed by our short-sighted politicians, now after experimenting with it for five years, which proved costly, the leaders need to think about correcting the system.
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