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Selling The Relief Supplies And Distributing Substandard Materials
Siddhi B Ranjitkar
Finance Minister Dr Ram Sharan Mahat was speaking at the Reporters’ Club’ in Kathmandu and was saying that the government would adopt a new model of reconstruction in the aftermath of the devastating quakes while his Personal Secretary was diverting the tin sheets sent to Nuwakot for the quake victims. He also said that the quake-wreck government had planned a donors’ meeting obviously for begging resources in the names of the quake victims. Those ministers including the prime minister have the beggars’ mindset, and they have been hungry for cash no matter in whose names they get. The quake disaster was the most opportune moment for them to collect a huge sum of money and then stash away in the foreign banks.
Speaking at the reporters’ Club in Kathmandu on May 30, 2015, Finance Minister Dr Ram Sharan Mahat said that the government would follow a new strategy of rebuilding the structures tore down by the quakes. He also said that the government would make available Rs 200,000 loan to each family for rebuilding quake-resistant houses following the drawings the government would provide. He also said that the government was holding a donors’ meeting on June 25, 2015 to mobilize resources for rebuilding the quake-devastated country, the news on ratopati.com stated on May 30, 2015.
FM reconstruction in a new model:
http://www.ratopati.com/2015/05/30/237074.html
While Finance Minister Dr Mahat was speaking at the Reporters’ Club in Kathmandu and saying that the government would do everything so generously for the quake victims, his personal secretary Ramesh Mahat faced the challenges from the local quake victims in Nuwakot to returning the tin sheets with the label of the Nepal Investment Bank intended for the quake victims back to Kathmandu. The local people stopped the trucks carrying the tin sheets and turning back to Kathmandu on the way. The locals also charged the personal secretary to Finance Minister Dr Mahat with taking the tin sheets back to Kathmandu for selling. The tin sheets worth Rs 4.5 millions
Irregularities in distribution of tin sheets:
http://www.ratopati.com/2015/05/30/236951.html
FM sending his PA to sell the relief materials:
http://dainiknepal.com/2015/63843.html
Of course Personal Secretary Ramesh Mahat denied his intention to selling the tin sheets. He even questioned how he could sell the tin sheets with the label of the Nepal Investment Bank. However, he could not answer why he was taking the tin sheets back to Kathmandu from Nuwakot. Those tin sheets were sent for the roofs of temporary shelters to be made for the quake victims. He even boasted that he had so much of the ancestral property he could not manage them. Here again he missed to explain why he was taking the job of the personal secretary to the finance minister if he were really so rich.
Now the question was whether the money also sent by Finance Minister Dr Ram Sharan Mahat to the different districts including his constituency Nuwakot had reached those districts or not whether those checks had been bounced back to the pocket of the ministers or not. Surely, Dr Mahat alone would not dare to pocket such a huge amount of money. All the cabinet ministers would have share in it. He had released more than a billion rupees to his constituency Nuwakot alone.
The irony is that any one of the State agencies had not reached Tajigaon: one of the remote villages in the Nuwakot, yet even after 25 days of the first quake, the news on the ratopati.com stated on May 21, 2015. The State officials had reached the area to collect the information on the quake-damaged village but the Finance Minister Dr Mahat had failed in sending anything to that village. An organization called Sampna Village Social Impact located in Sauraha: a tourist town in Chitwan went to the Tajigaon village and distributed some relief supplies to the villagers, the news on the ratopati.com stated on May 21, 2015
http://www.ratopati.com/2015/05/21/234893.html
So, Dr Mahat had neglected even the village of his constituency. Probably, he had done so because the village had not sufficient voters or the voters were not in his favor or the number of voters was considerably small to warrant his attention. If Dr Mahat were to neglect the certain areas of his constituency whether he would indiscriminately distribute the relief supplies or money from the Prime Minister’s Disaster Relief Fund to the victims in other quake-affected areas. That was the most valid question to ask. He had put his integrity at risk not properly managing the relief fund.
The government gave four billion rupees to the Ministry of Home to buy tin sheets for immediately providing the quake victims, the news on myrepublica.com stated on May 21, 2015. What the deputy Prime Minister Bamdev Gautam holding the portfolio of the home Ministry was doing with that money was unknown. Two billion rupees was released from the Prime Minister’s Disaster Relief Fund following the cabinet meeting held on Wednesday, May 20, 2015 to provide each family with Rs 15,000 for buying tin sheets for roofs.
- See more at: http://myrepublica.com/economy/item/21246-govt-releases-rs-4b-to-moha-to-build-temporary-settlements.html#sthash.yo0aFj9S.dpuf
The quake victims had already rejected Rs 15,000 stating it was too small too late. This cabinet decision on releasing the money from the Prime Minster’s Disaster Relief Fund once again proved that the nine-member team coordinated by the vice-chairman of the National Planning Commission was to manage the Prime Minster’s Disaster Relief Fund; the prime minister has nothing to do with the fund; so misappropriation of the fund was not possible were totally false.
Finance Minister Dr Mahat said at the special committee of the parliament that the lack of correct data on the quake victims had led some family members falsely collecting Rs 5,000 each; the money was supposed to be only for each family. He also said that 400 to 500 officials were sent to collect correct data on the quake victims. The government had held up distributing Rs 15,000 waiting for the correct data on the quake victims, the news on the ratopati.com stated on May 27, 2015.
No accurate date on the sufferers for distributing relief materials:
http://www.ratopati.com/2015/05/27/236296.html
Obviously, Finance Minister Dr Mahat had not read the news on the raopati.com that former governor Dipendra Bahadur Chhetri found 87 houses-damaged in the Mustang district but his team had carried relief supplies only for 70 following the official data. So, Dr Mahat needed to take into account of the validity of the official data rather than charging the locals with falsely collecting the grant money of Rs 5,000 the government had provided.
http://www.ratopati.com/2015/05/30/237054.html
The government was concerned very much with the misappropriation of as small as Rs 5,000. That concern was correct very much, too. But the public concern was the misappropriation of billions rupees at the State level. Widespread reports on the irregularities in the purchase of relief supplies had been business as usual for the ministers and the State officials. The amount of the misappropriated money was alarmingly high every year. To this misappropriated amount, ministers including prime minister were accountable.
The Ministry of Urban Development purchased tarpaulins for Rs 700 million but the 90% of them were low quality some of the tarpaulins were so small they were just large enough to cover motorcycles, the news on the setopati.com stated on May 31, 2015. Everybody could clearly see how the ministry people make money out of the purchases. Why the Commission on Investigation into Abuse of Authority (CIAA) did not do anything? It was an open secret.
Irregularities in purchasing tarpaulin: http://setopati.com/raajneeti/28659/
The international organization such as World Food Program of the UN, and the national NGO Nepal Red Cross have been involved in distributing not usable relief supplies. The quake victims had complained about the inedible rice distributed by the Nepal Red Cross received from the World Food Program. Some children even got sick after eating the rice meals, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) stated on Tuesday, May 26, 2015. The leader of the NHRC monitoring team Mohana Ansari found the rice stored at Mahadevsthan Samaj Sewa building in Kavrepalanchowk for the distribution to the quake victims was uneatable. So, the NHRC recommended the government to take legal actions against World Food Program (WFP) and Nepal Red Cross for distributing substandard rice to the quake victims, the news on setoati.net stated on May 27, 2015.
- See more at: http://setopati.net/society/6787/NHRC-asks-govt-to-take-action-against-WFP,-Nepal-Red-Cross/#sthash.xKQH893o.dpuf
The Social Welfare Council had purchased rice, tarpaulins and other relief supplies for Rs 29 millions for the quake victims. The monitoring unit of the Department of Commerce found both the rice and tarpaulins were of low qualities and not usable, the news on the ratopati.com stated on May 27, 2015.
Social Welfare Council: low quality relief materials:
http://www.ratopati.com/2015/05/27/236507.html
Both the sellers and buyers of the relief supplies had been the beneficiaries whereas the quake victims continued to suffer from losing everything to the devastating quakes. Those sellers and buyers of the low quality not usable relief supplies were the culprits in the real meaning of the word, and would have been put to behind bars in the countries that have the rule of law. In Nepal where the ministers including prime minister were involved in worst irregularities in purchases than the reported ones, who could put them behind bars?
The local leader of CPN-UML had held up the distribution of the relief supplies to the quake victims in the remote Salmechaur village in the Kavre district. The Red Cross Society Kavre Branch had sent the relief supplies to the village but those supplies had been held up in the store for four days. The local CPN-UML Shekhar Lama wanted to distribute the relief supplies as he wanted, the news on ratopati.com stated on May 27, 2015.
CPN-UML obstructed the relief distribution:
http://www.ratopati.com/2015/05/27/236465.html
Local CPN-UML leader Shekhar Lama must be smart enough to put the relief supplies in the hands of his loved ones or of the CPN-UML cadres only or might be the both, leaving the real quake victims high and dry. Apparently, the Red Cross Society was not for that. So, Mr. Lama had simply held up the relief supplies from distribution. Mr. Lama was a fly in the ointment, no doubt about that. He was handling a considerably small quantity of supplies compared to his bosses at the center such as Chairman of CPN-UML KP Oli and his favorite Mahesh Basnet that could hold up billions of rupees worth of supplies.
Not only in the remote areas, political leaders have held up the relief supplies but also in the Kathmandu area, too. The locals of Chunikhel in the Buddhanilkantha area seized the supplies stored in the houses of the local NC leaders. The local people charged the NC local leaders with giving away the relief supplies only to the NC cadres, the news on the nepalsandesh.com stated on May 16, 2015.
Relief materials with NC leaders:
http://www.nepalsandesh.com/2015/05/16/133845.html
Prime Minister Sushil Koirala and his cabinet ministers were having fun at the cultural heritage site Hanumandhoka in Kathmandu on May 29, 2015 for two hours clearing the debris left by the quakes. Prime Minister Koirala and his ministers wearing the construction-safety helmets and dust masks lined up to shift a few broken bricks from one place to another. The locals said that the ministers had done nothing except for shifting the debris they had already cleared off, it was the waste of time and money rather the ministers needed to think about how to protect the remaining cultural heritage from the soon-coming monsoon, the news on myrepublica.com stated on May 30, 2015.
- See more at: http://myrepublica.com/politics/item/21774-pm-ministers-clear-quake-debris-at-heritage-sites.html#sthash.Aw1KYCSS.dpuf
The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) in conjunction with Trekking Agencies' Association of Nepal (TAAN) and Nepal Mountaineering Association have provided the quake victims with relief supplies in the inaccessible villages in the six most-quake-affected districts such as Gorkha, Dhading, Rasuwa, Nuwakot, Sindhupalchowk and Dolakha. The government agencies and other organizations have not reached the remote quake-affected areas, the news posted on the ekantipur.com stated on May 27, 2015.
The international organization such as WFP and the national organizations such as TAAN and NMA distributing the relief supplies has been the challenge to the Finance Minister Dr Ram Sharan Mahat’s doctrine of funneling all the relief supplies through the government agencies. Evidently, relief supplies would never reach the inaccessible areas if the only government agencies were to distribute the relief supplies. The government agencies would certainly follow the political parties’ directives in distributing the relief supplies.
The special committee of the parliament had instructed the government to provide the quake victims with Rs 50,000 including the grant of Rs 15,000 immediately keeping the balance of Rs 165,000 to be paid later on making Rs 200,000 the government previously committed to provide the victims as a loan. The parliamentary committee had to direct the government to do so following the Finance Minster Dr Mahat firmly sticking to his earlier decision on paying only the grant of Rs 15,000, the news on the stopati.net stated on May 27, 2015.
Finance Minister Dr Mahat wanted to keep the State money as his pocket money while keeping the quake victims without roofs and at the mercy of the sun and rains. Would the Nepalese people and the donor agencies believe in such a finance minister properly managing the State treasury for the benefits of the people in general? Certainly not, that was one of the reasons why the donor agencies had been reluctant to deposit any money in the Prime Minster’s Disaster Relief Fund.
May 31, 2015
