By D.M. Thapa
The world is going through a crisis right now. There is heightened tension among the big powers, wars and violent attacks are taking place in different areas, different bocks are forging military-like alliances and worst of all, the economy is going down worldwide now.
While the bigger and richer countries may be able to cope with the problems because most of the problems are being created by themselves and they also have funds to spare, it is the third-world nations who are already feeling the pinch of the declining international economy. It could be because of the downturn in the economies in major nations, it could be by the wars, it could be because those countries which contributed for different reasons worldwide are now themselves going through a difficult period or on the other hand because of the wrong policies by the poorer nations.
Take for example, even now when the country has an internal loan of billions of rupees, some highly placed leaders and so-called ‘experts’ are saying that the dividing of the provinces is doing good for the country and no one should speak against it. Not saying anything about anything is another debate, but can any sane person say the country hasn’t been hardly jitted economically by the formation of autonomous provinces?
There is no doubt every individual has the right to his or her own identification, they even have the right to say to which community they belong. But such rights cannot be taken as a basic right at the cost of this tiny nation, which was living in peace and harmony to be fragmented. This has always been the beauty of Nepal and no citizen of this country should hesitate at all in calling themselves a Nepali, here and in the international sector.
Now to talk on the other side of the luxury of provinces, it must be understood that all provinces are autonomous and they have their own governors, chief ministers, ministers and other such official logistics that make up an autonomous body. That this distribution of power is also good and there are dozens of examples of how local-level bodies have made it simple for the people to get government services for which they had to go to different places where they had no one to call as a recognized official from his or her home village.
But at the same time, the cost of having a separate governor, chief minister, ministers and the facilities that come with their important posts is a heavy one, and sometimes it becomes burdensome for the whole nation.
The housing of the chief ministers, governors, and ministers, the perks they receive and other things like vehicles, petrol and security guards also drain into the overall budget of any given province and little is spent on development activities. Moreover, there is a lot of corruption in bigger development projects and every year one can hear how much more is spent on the regular budget and lesser on the development budget. For any country wanting to see quick development activities because they are already far behind other nations and for them to see also the quality of life of the general people improving, it is like a nightmare where everything is going backwards, also amid political instability and constant interference of foreign powers, especially from the West and also neighbouring India.
At this tricky moment for the country when things don’t seem to be running smoothly, a high-level ‘expert’ came out with a report that he presented to the president in which he recommended an increase in the salary of government workers. He has added that Nepalese civil servants draw the lowest amount of salary in the region. We understand that and we believe they deserve more, but compare their salaries and perks to those who are less fortunate and thus are not in government offices, they are far off poorer than any civil servants, who receive attractive perks, opportunities to go abroad for many reasons, enjoy pension and have more holidays compared to any others, except poor schools teachers that is. But compare the work a school teacher or even a nurse or a small-time worker in a private office enjoys and the pay and perks of the civil servants look like a ransom.
Of course, we are not saying the salary of the civil servants should be cut or they must be stopped going abroad on government expenses, but compare the number of people working in government offices and the rest of the general public out on the streets. According to a rough estimate, there is only about five per cent of the population does government jobs. How can only the welfare of so few be kept way ahead of the welfare of millions of others?
Now despite all sorts of good-to-hear rhetoric from our politicians, bureaucrats, ‘experts’ and some others, the reality is that Nepal is economically slowly being pushed towards the ‘Gray Zone’, this is just one step above the “Black Zone”. The Gray Zone may sound like an innocent phrase or an obscure economic jargon. But the fact is, if a country falls into this zone, most of the international monetary institutions like the World Bank, IMF and even ADB will stop providing loans and grants to such countries. This would be a disaster for a country like Nepal, which needs foreign largesse just to make its annual budget. If there are embargoes and friendly foreign nations also not coming forward to help Nepal monetarily, the Nepalese will be staring face to face at an economic disaster which could invite more problems, politically, economically and socially as well. So this could be a ripe time for not only foreign powers to cooly walk into Nepal and dictate matters, like cutting the salaries of civil servants and maybe even doing away with a pension. This will hit the country hard. Is this what the Nepali people want? Of course not, they want to see the quality of life of all the people prospering and all living together in harmony.
Therefore the mantra for Nepal to survive is to follow a strict path of austerity and leave aside pumped-up salaries for a few, pomp and show for even fewer and to see a strong economy concentrate on development projects which will touch the lives of the people and make Nepal once again the heaven it was before where people lived to eat the produce of the land and enjoyed stability whether it was less developed than others.
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