On/Off the Record
By P.R. Pradhan
Politics is very fluid. The economy has become very weak. Commission and corruption practices are flourishing. Those political leaders in the government are openly involved in corruption and commission. All the organs necessary for running a nation have become dysfunctional. Political leaders are ready to do everything just to get power. They are even ready for serving foreign powers just to enjoy power in the country. In fact, there is a race among the supreme leaders of the major political parties for pleasing their bosses in Delhi just for being rewarded with power and post. India is doing micro-management in Nepal. Already, Nepal has fallen under the Indian security umbrella as the leaders in the government are unable to reject Indian instruction.
A self-relined economy is the base of a sovereign and independent nation but the country’s economy has already been ruined. The country’s revenue is unable to meet the general sector expenditure as after 2008, the political leaders introduced an expensive system that the country needed more funds for its operation. A 601-member constituent assembly was introduced just to adjust the maximum number of people’s representatives or say distributing funds from the government coffer in the name of salaries and allowances and other facilities. More than that, in 2015, a federal structure was introduced by introducing seven provinces and 753 local governments – all the representatives receiving salaries, allowances and other facilities from the government coffer. Besides, the mechanism of the proportional election was introduced making the total strength of the Federal Parliament 275. Altogether, above 35 thousand people’s representatives from the federal government to the local bodies, are enjoying regular salaries, allowances and other facilities. When the government needed to feed those people’s representatives, the general sector expenditure has been increased enormously.
Nepal is a tiny country having around 30 million population. Out of them, around 10 million population have gone abroad for dangerous and dirty jobs. Unfortunately, the major source for receiving foreign currency to spend for the government has become remittance income sent by those poor Nepali youths who are shedding their sweat in the Gulf countries.
How commission and corruption practices have flourished in an organized way, there are many examples. A recent example is the fake Bhutanese refugee scam. Ministers, senior party leaders, and top-ranking government officials are seen as involved in the organized scam. How the brokers and middlemen were operating the Home Ministry, is an example of mal-governance.
The Commission for Investigation on Abuse of Authority (CIAA) is unable to investigate big scams including the wide body aircraft scam, the Lalita Niwas government land scam, the smuggling of 35 kgs of gold, the PLA cantonment scam, the Bansbari land scam, Yeti Group scam, Omni Group scam, CCTV footage scam, Balmandir land scam, among others. If files of all these scams will be opened, none of the influential leaders will remain clean. Pushpakamal Dahal himself had claimed that the actual number of the PLA was around seven thousand, whereas, the party had received the amount of a larger number of PLAs. Baburam Bhattarai, the second leader of the Maoist, had alleged that Dahal himself had manipulated billions of rupees.
An audio record that a broker had given cash to Arzu Rana, Balkrishna Khand and Manju Khand has become viral these days. According to the record, the then prime minister’s wife Arzu Rana received 20 million rupees and then home minister Balkrishna Khand and his wife Manju Khand received 60 million rupees for sending Nepali nationals to America with the identity of fake Bhutanese refugees. If an independent investigation is carried out, many top political leaders are going to be punished. However, we doubt, the case will also be dismissed as like the previous corruption and commission scams as none of the political leaders are clean.
When politics become an instrument for making money without investing a single rupee, this is unfortunate. We cannot hope for better rule from those corrupt leaders. They become ready to do everything for the sake of money.
If we look back to the political history of the country, until 1990, things were better. We had many industries substituting imports. The national revenue was sound. The bureaucracy was very strong and aloof from politics. The country’s foreign policy was very influential and strong. The Police force was very impressive. On the whole, we could experience good governance during those days compared to present-day governance. All sectors started to ruin after political parties started to rule. The Maoist armed insurgency was the result of bad governance introduced by the Nepali Congress and UML. In 2008, under the 12-point Delhi agreement, the Maoist also joined in the planned loot in the country. As a result, all sectors have been badly ruined. Whether the nation rises again, or whether somebody will come to rescue this country, we have not seen any rays of hope.
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