Moral Hazard Of Prime Minister And Ministers

Siddhi B Ranjitkar

Prime Minister Madhav Nepal has been presiding over the most unprincipled and unscrupulous ministers any Prime Minister had done in the past. In fact, Madhav Nepal himself is one of the most deceitful ministers. So, they have misused so much of the national resources during the last ten-month of his reign in Nepal. Nepalis have suffered a lot from the price rise of various foodstuffs, and from not enforcing the rule of law causing tremendous lawlessness in the country.

Madhav Nepal has been the most crooked Prime Minister in Nepal. He has openly defied the recommendation of the sovereign Public Account Committee (PAC) for awarding the contract for printing machine-readable passports (MRPs) to the lowest bidder following the Financial Rules and Regulations, and has awarded the contract for printing the MRPs to the Indian government-owned company. So, the PAC has called Prime Minister Madhav Nepal on April 5, 2010 to give explanations for not following the rule of law and abusing the authority and giving the contract for printing MRPs to the Indian company.

Prime Minister Madhav Nepal and his deputy Sujata Koirala have been the partners in awarding the job of printing MRPs to the Indian company. The business of printing MRPs runs over billions of Nepalese rupees. The PAC has instructed Sujata Koirala to follow the Financial Rules and Regulations for printing MRPs and do it transparently calling bids for it again as she has cancelled all previous bids on January 15, 2010. Irritated by the instructions of the PAC, Sujata Koirala has even questioned the rights of the PAC to interfere in her business, and in her anger has accused the PAC made up of ‘a bunch of corrupt people’. However, she has forgotten that the PAC is a sovereign committee and has the rights to instruct the executives to follow the rule of law.

Speaking at the Reporters’ Club in Kathmandu on February 27, 2010, Sujata Koirala has said that she has twice asked the Chief Secretary to the Council of Minister to take the proposal for printing MRPs in India to the cabinet meeting but he has not taken it; so, she has demanded the Prime minister fire him immediately. Obviously, the Chief Secretary: the top civil servant or a bureaucrat knows that the proposal for printing MRPs in India without calling bids goes against the Financial Rules and Regulations.

The Foreign Ministry in conjunction with the office of Prime Minister Madhav Nepal has sought the approval of the PAC for printing MRPs in India; the PAC has stuck on its decision on suggesting the Ministry of Foreign Affairs following the bidding process for printing MRPs.

On March 1, 2010, Secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Madan Kumar Bhattarai has sought legal counseling from Attorney General Prof Bharat Bahadur Karki for printing MRPs. Attorney General Karki has been for printing MRPs immediately not breaking up the Financial Rules and Regulations according to the state-run newspaper ‘Gorkhapatra’ of March 2, 2010.

International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has set the deadline of April 1, 2010 for all its member states to issue MRPs. Certainly the Government headed by Madhav Nepal is going to miss the deadline for issuing MRPs. The sufferers are the common folks, as most of the students going to study abroad and laborers going to work in foreign countries have to wait for a month or so for getting machine-readable passports whereas the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister must have pocked millions of rupees in commission coming from the awarding the printing of MRPs to the Indian company, as the government has awarded the printing of MRPs to the Indian company at US dollar per piece whereas one of the company has bided for printing MRPs at Singapore dollar 2.5 per piece (Buying rate of US dollar is Rupees 71.50, and of Singapore dollar is 51.09 of the Nepal Rastra Bank published on the statue-run newspaper ‘Gorkhapatra’ of April 4, 2010) according to the local media. They have no other reasons for not awarding the printing of MRPs to the lowest bidder.

On March 12, 2010 the private news website called Myrepublica.com has reported that Prime Minister Madhav Nepal’s office has claimed for the reimbursement of Rs 10 million from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) Prime Minister Madhav Nepal has spent on attending the Climate-Change Summit held in Copenhagen, Denmark in December 2009 without submitting proper bills of expenditures. So, the Ministry of Finance (MoF) has refused to reimburse Rs 10 million to the office of Prime Minister Madhav Nepal.

Brushing off the widespread criticism in the press, Prime Minister Madhav Nepal had included his relatives and friends on his entourage to attend the UN-sponsored Climate-Change Summit held in Copenhagen, Denmark causing such a huge expenditure on his attendance to the climate-change summit. Clearly, Madhav Nepal has refused to follow the rules and regulations and doing state business as his private business and wasting the national resources on the enjoyment of his relatives, friends and henchmen.

The Nepalese media have widely publicized the news about Prime Minister Madhav Nepal misusing state money for keeping his henchmen and cadres of his party well fed. According to the Nepalese media, he has finished off the budget allocated to the fund of Prime Minister for spending at his discretion for the fiscal year 2009, as he has handed out the money to his henchmen labeling them ‘needy’ to keep the support for his government. He has sought additional money from the Ministry of Finance to this end. He has been justifying using the taxpayers’ money at his discretion indiscriminately to buy the support for his government.

The state-run newspaper ‘Gorkhapatra’ of February 22, 2010 has reported that members of the Legislature Committee on State Affairs have interrogated Prime Minister Madhav Nepal concerning the efficiency of his administration and filling the vacant positions at four constitutional bodies such as Commission on Investigation into Abuse of Authority, Auditor General, Public Service Commission and Election Commission. Madhav Nepal has been Prime Minister for eight months by February 2010 but he has been sloppy in filling the vacant positions at the crucial constitutional bodies whereas he has been very smart recruiting the cadres of his party for the vacant positions in the state administration.

In the third week of March 2010, the government of Madhav Nepal has decided to appoint incumbent Vice-chairman of National Planning Commission Dr Yuba Raj Khatiwada to the position of Governor of the Central Bank of Nepal called Nepal Rastra Bank to fill the position lying vacant for more than one month. Following the Nepal Rastra Bank Act, the government needs to appoint a governor one month before the retirement of the incumbent governor. Surely, keeping the position of the governor of Nepal Rastra Bank vacant for such a long period, Madhav Nepal has not followed the law and rules and regulations.

Madhav Nepal has not been serious about implementing the development projects. For example, his government has assigned constructing the fast track between Kathmandu and Hetauda to the Nepal Army, and has also allocated Rs 100 million to this project but the project costs billions of rupees. Speaking at a function held in Hetauda on February 22, 2010, President of Federation of Nepal Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) Kush Kumar Joshi has said that the private sector is ready to take over the construction of the fast track between Kathmandu and Hetauda, and would complete the construction within two years mobilizing national and international resources if the Government of Nepal entrusts the construction of it to the private sector; however, the government would not be able to construct it even after 20 years.

Traveling on this fast track, travelers can reach Hetauda from Kathmandu within two to three hours. So, millions of travelers traveling from Kathmandu to Hetauda and vice versa would save billions of hours of traveling time annually if this fast track is built. Transport operators would save billions of rupees worth of fuels, wear and tear of machine and tires annually. Currently, travelers have to spend more than eight hours for reaching Hetauda from Kathmandu, and pay high fares. However, Madhav Nepal is not serious about it.

Similarly, Prime Minister Madhav Nepal has laid a foundation stone of constructing a 26 km long tunnel to bring water from the Melamchi River to the Kathmandu Valley. However, nothing has happened yet in the filed so far, as the contractor has not been able to start off the construction work at the site due to the obstruction by the local people demanding compensation for the loss of their water and irrigable land. Madhav Nepal has not been serious enough to do any thing concrete at least to initiate the work at the tunnel site despite the acute shortage of water in the Kathmandu Valley. Kathmanduites are getting water once every five days only.

Since Madhav Nepal became the Prime Minister the prices of foodstuffs have skyrocketed. The prices of potatoes have gone up from Rs 20 to Rs 50 per kilogram; the prices of rice have increased from Rs 40 to Rs 100 per kilogram. The police have stopped individuals bringing potatoes to Kathmandu to keep up the high prices of potatoes giving room for speculation that Madhav Nepal has a secret deal with the people storing potatoes at the cold storage. The government of Madhav Nepal has deliberately increased the price of sugar from Rs 50 to 90 per kilogram at the time of crushing sugarcanes for making sugar in conjunction with the sugar mill owners for making money for both Madhav Nepal and the sugar mill owners, as the government has the monopoly on buying and selling sugar in Nepal. The government of Madhav Nepal had boasted that it would buy sugar from Brazil or China or India for keeping reasonable price of sugar in Nepal but the government had neither imported sugar from Brazil nor from China and India but has increased the price drastically at the time of sugar-making season. Sugar is one of the staple foods of the poor and the budget people. So, the high price of sugar has hit the most vulnerable section of the population. His government has increased the prices of petroleum products while the exchange rate of American dollar in the Nepalese rupee has been going down and the international market price of oil has been going down, too.

One of the worst deeds of Prime Minister Madhav Nepal has been the restoration of the subsidy on chemical fertilizers at the cost of billions of rupees to the sate treasury. Under the pressure of the international community, one of the previous governments has removed the subsidy on fertilizers as such a subsidy has been taxing the state treasury too much. Farmers have not received the subsidized fertilizers. They have been buying the smuggled fertilizers according to the local media. Nobody knows where the subsidized fertilizers go.

His Defense Minister Vidhya Bhandari has been the most irrational minister. One of the most irresponsible and irrational comments she has made is that United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) has been "the Maoist party's tail" and "keeping the government in the dark" refusing to provide the Government of Nepal with the actual number of Maoist combatants in the cantonments and other details, the government has requested for.

In response to the Defense Minister’s irrational comment on the UNMIN, on March 17, 2010, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General Karin Landgren has written a strong letter to Prime Minister Madhav Nepal demanding the Defense Minister take back her comments on the UNMIN. In her letter to the Prime Minister, Ms. Landgren has said that allegations made by the Defense Ministers are false.

UNMIN has repeatedly said that it has no mandate to provide the Government of Nepal or the Maoists with the information on the Maoists’ combatants or the Nepal Army. While in the visit to Nepal, UN Under Secretary General for Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe has repeated that the UNMIN cannot provide the information on the Maoists’ combatants the government has sought for following the rule of law.

The UNMIN has been in Nepal to assist both the Government of Nepal and the Maoists in completing the peace process. The Defense Minister’s statement has indicated Madhav Nepal and his Defense Minister are for chasing away the UNMIN and confront with the Maoists. Defense Minister has been against the integration of the two armies into a single army going against the Comprehensive Peace Agreement the Government of Nepal has reached with the Maoists.

The Nepal Army personnel have killed three women including a 12-year old girl at the Bardiya National Park on March 10, 2010. The Nepal Army has labeled the innocent women as poachers and the Defense Minister has endorsed it for escaping the killers from the crime with impunity. The irony is that the Nepal Army personnel have also charged the innocent unarmed women with firing at them.

Speaking to the reporters at a press conference held in Kathmandu on April 1, 2010 to make public the report on the investigation into the killing of three women in the army firing at Bardiya National Park on March 10, 2010, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) member Gauri Pradhan has said that the field investigation into the incident has proved that the deceased females were not poachers, they did not possess weapons and explosives as claimed by the Nepal Army, the women were there simply for collecting the bark of trees; the Nepal Army has manipulated the evidences to prove that the army has killed the three women in an encounter.

Prime Minister Madhav Nepal has not been in favor of extending the term of the UN Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNOHCHR) in Nepal but for strengthening the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) despite the European and American diplomats advising him to extend the term of the UNOHCHR at the meeting with him on March 30, 2010. Clearly, the UNOHCHR would be in favor of advocating for the human rights that has been abused by the Nepal Army and the armed police force in Nepal. NHRC cannot do anything except for telling the government to stop the human rights abuse that the government of Prime Minister Madhav Nepal has been perpetrating. For example, recently, Prime Minister Madhav Nepal and his Defense Minister have promoted Toran Jung Bahadur Singh to the second-in-command of the Nepal Army despite the opposition of the international and local human rights organizations and civil society leaders and their demands for punishing Mr. Singh for the enforced disappearance of 49 Nepalis the Army battalion under his command had taken them in custody in 2003 and 2004.

Home Minister Bhim Rawal has been the most incompetent minister and has been for making money only. He has put forward the special security plan for recruiting 16,000 additional police at the cost of billions of rupees. He could make millions of rupees from the commission he receives from the purchase of uniform for those 16,000 additional police.

Despite the introduction of the special security plan, Home Minister Rawal has not been able to protect the lives and properties of citizenry. Mr. Rawal has been the helpless minister not being able to protect the lives of media people such as Jamim Shah on February 7, 2010 killed in Kathmandu and Arun Shinghania publisher of ‘Janakpur Today’ and founder of FM ‘Radio Today’ killed in Janakpur on March 1, 2010 at the broad daylight. He has patted the armed policemen on their backs appreciating them for killing the innocent and unarmed people in the name of ejecting the encroachers on the forestland in Atariya in far Western Nepal in 2009. Indiscriminate killings of innocent people, excessive use of police force on the reporters demanding their security, policemen raping woman in Janakpur and policemen harassing the restaurant businessmen in Kathmandu have been the regular daily businesses of the police. However, Bhim Rawal feels that these policemen have been doing the right jobs; and he has been shamelessly continuing the job of a Home Minister.

Minister for Information and Communication Shanker Pokharel has done nothing for protecting the lives of the reporters. He has been a mute witness of daylight killing of media men in Kathmandu and Janakpur, and the beating of reporters by the security people in Janakpur in the third week of March 2010. Mr. Pokharel also has morally no rights to continuing on the job of minister as he has failed in protecting the lives and property of reporters.

Minister for Energy Dr. Prakash Sharan Mahat has a plan to harness 25,000 MW hydropower while the Nepalis have been living in darkness for 18 hours a day due to the power outage; nothing idiotic can be than this plan when Nepalis need only additional 200 MW. He could have immediately set up a diesel power plant of that capacity to mitigate the power shortage but the minister chasing after money does not feel like doing anything good for the people. He does not care Nepalis loosing billions of rupees worth of business due to the power outage not to mention other losses caused by the power outage. He has no moral rights to be on the job for not doing anything to reduce the power shortage.

Minister for Health Umakanta Chaudhary has gone to Germany at the cost of the Germany agency GTZ to attend the conference intended for his secretary for a week while diarrhea epidemic has been rapidly spreading in the mid-western districts such as Jajarkot, Rukum and Baitadi in August 2009. The Minister has not been concerned with the people suffering from the diarrhea epidemic. Illogical Minister Chaudhary has attempted to shift his irresponsibility for controlling the diarrhea epidemic saying if the previous government has done something concrete to control diarrhea it would not have spread as an epidemic.

The government headed by Madhav Nepal has passed several relief programs to mitigate the sufferings of the people from diarrhea but has done a little to send the men and medicines to the areas affected by the simple disease that has been killing the people due to the lack of very basic prescription drugs. For example, on August 12, 2009, the Council of Ministers has passed a special program on providing the diarrhea epidemic affected people with relief. This is the second special relief program the Madhav government has passed. However, beneficiaries have continued to complain about not receiving relief materials and medical supplies.

On November 10, 2009, Minster of State for Agriculture and Cooperative Karima Begum has hit Chief District Officer (CDO) of Parsa District Durga Prasad Bhandari breaking his glasses for not sending a vehicle fitting her status for her use while in the district. The CDO is not responsible for serving the visiting minister, however, he has acted on courtesy sending whatever vehicle he has. After more than a month of continuous pressure of the state civil employees and human rights activities, on December 15, 2009, the State Minister has apologized to the public for hitting the CDO. Prime Minister Madhav Nepal does not feel shame on keeping such a crazy minister of state in his council of ministers.

The Council of Ministers of Madhav Nepal has a Minister for General Administration with two names such as Prabhakar Pradhanang and Rabindra Shrestha. The Minister for General Administration has been using these two names even for the official purposes. So, the minister in question could use two passports either as a Pradhanang or as a Shrestha. So, the minister could sell one of his passports to the international espionage network and keep another for himself whenever the need for money arises.

Prime Minister Madhav Nepal presides over the morally corrupt ministers. This has been possible, as the leaders of the eighteen political parties have been the important source of legitimacy for the unelected Prime Minister Madhav Nepal. They have been providing illegitimate Madhav Nepal with the legitimate support at the legislature to continue his immoral acts thus indirectly subjecting themselves to moral hazard.

April 2, 2010