By Our Reporter
Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal completed a year in office on Wednesday. It is the first time Dahal has managed to stay in power for a year. In his two stints earlier, he was unable to complete even 300 days in the office. During his first stint in 2008/09, he quit the government in nine months over Army Chief row, and during his second term in 2016/17, he left the government remaining in power for less than 10 months as per the power-sharing agreement with the Nepali Congress.
As it is the first government led by him to complete a year, he addressed the nation on Tuesday mentioning the works of the government in a year. During his 50-minute address to the nation, he committed to changing the operational approach of the government, mentioning some of the works performed in a year.
Earlier, his secretariat and the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology issued a decree to the editors and chairmen of the government media to publish and air the contents appreciating the government works every day for two weeks.
No matter what the state media have disseminated, and what the PM said in his lengthy address to the nation, in reality, Prime Minister Dahal proved to be an unsuccessful leader in running the government.
Instead of making the government efficient, he applied his strength to reaching and retaining power. He first became Prime Minister in the support of the CPN-UML by abandoning the Nepali Congress with which his party had forged an electoral alliance.
But later, he again allied with NC after the election of the President. This shift kept him busy in removing and appointing ministers for months.
Although the government did some praiseworthy works by arresting powerful people for their alleged involvement in sending Nepalis to the USA by turning them into fake Bhutanese refugees and opening the files of the Lalita Niwas land scam, he later applied measures to release the arrested people when the involvement of Maoist leaders in gold smuggling was revealed.
Of course, on the good governance front, the government was a failure. Corruption and bad governance continued to thrive. Controversial individuals like Lharkyal Lama were appointed vice chair of Lumbini Development Trust.
No law except for the one related to loan sharks was formulated and enacted. The sessions of the parliament ended by passing only one law. As a result, crucial bills including the one related to transitional justice, the Civil Service Act, the Education Act as well as Police Adjustment Act have still been pending in the parliament.
Above all, the government failed to bring the national economy on to right track. Over the year, only the external sector of the economy witnessed improvement but the domestic sector has still in the doldrums. The government has failed to pay billions of rupees to the contractors and address the concerns of businessmen. It was reported that the government was unable to pay Rs. 37 billion spent to build hospitals at local levels and Rs. 7 billion of bridge construction. Likewise, the government has not issued Rs. 252 to pay the social security. The government has already taken Rs 131 billion loan to meet the recurrent expenditure when the revenue collection has been poor and the recurrent expenditure has been higher than the collected revenue. Capital budget expenditure has been poor.
Sugarcane farmers have not received their due money.
No national pride project concluded in a year and the government failed to bring into operation two new international airports—Gautam Buddha Airport in Bhairahawa and Pokhara Airport in Pokhara. The damaged Melmachi water project has not been repaired for months. The process of underground the cables of electricity in Kathmandu has been halted. The universities and even the institutes providing technical education have been without students. The hospitals are without doctors and health workers. Moreover, the government cut the budget that used to be allocated to feed the patients admitted to the Bir Hospital.
No agreements signed with India and China came into implementation in a year. PM Dahal though succeeded in bringing 10 Murraha buffalo bulls from India, did nothing to resolve the border dispute. The only good thing that happened during his tenure is that Nepal exported power worth Rs. 15 billion to India.
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