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Sushil-led Government-55: NC-CPN-UML-RPP Corrupt Governance Partners
Siddhi B Ranjitkar
Prime Minister Sushil Koirala took a pride in having the assets of only three mobiles in other words he had not amassed anything but he had been sitting with all the ministers that had shady backgrounds. The corruption had been so endemic in the Koirala administration that a foreign donor agency had been advised to cut down or even cut off the aid money to the Koirala administration. The members of the Nepal Bar Association had been openly talking about the corruption prevailing in the Nepalese courts. The Nepalese non-governmental organizations had managed to gain the reputation of being corrupt, too. One of the human rights organizations openly backed the rapist. What else we do need to say anything about so widespread corruption in Nepal. Rallying behind Dr Govinda KC, some youths had started off wearing T-shirts with the slogan of ‘jail the corrupt’ but nothing had moved the corrupt officials and politicians so far. They had the business as usual.
The man with the asset of three mobile had been sitting on the chair of the prime minister. He was putting up a clean face but his activities had been not so clean. He had already used Rs 14 million for his cancer treatment in the US; he had been sitting on the huge amount of the donations collected for the victims of the natural disasters such as the floods and landslides in the last year but even after eight months of the disaster the victims have not received anything except for the sufferings from the loss of their property and loved ones.
“LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Britain should cut its 86 million pound ($128 million) aid budget for Nepal unless the country acts to combat poor governance and "endemic" corruption, a parliamentary committee said on Friday, (March 27, 2015)”, the news on Yahoo.com stated.
The Department for International Development (DFID) of the UK had been handling the aid money to Nepal. It had helped Nepal make progress in health, water and sanitation in the nine years since the end of the civil war. The International Development Committee (IDC), an UK parliamentary committee had been monitoring the performance of DFID. "Nepal suffers from poor governance, and corruption is endemic," committee chairman Malcolm Bruce said in a statement. "If Nepal is to become less corrupt, improvements in governance and a change of culture have to be made to state institutions." The committee said working with local non-governmental organizations instead of the state was not a solution, as both are "prone to corruption in a corrupt society".
Read: http://news.yahoo.com/uk-must-cut-aid-nepal-endemic-corruption-persists-000447201.html
Speaking at the cabinet meeting held on March 27, 2015, Deputy Prime Minister holding the portfolio of Home Minister Bamdev Gautam labeled those speaking against turning over the electronic visa processing to a foreign company as traitors. Prime Minister Sushil Koirala had ordered minister Gautam to stop the process of giving the job to a private company after the Nepalese media made tremendous outcry against it, and some political leaders also spoke out against it, the news on setopati.net stated. Usually, such deals brought billions of rupees in kickbacks to the concerned decision maker. Minister Gautam needed money for the next elections as each election means spending billions of money earned illegally.
http://setopati.net/politics/6005/Those-opposing-electronic-visa-are-traitors:-Home-Minister-Gautam/
Speaking in Bardiya on March 27, 2015, Minister for General Administration Lalbabu Pandit told the civil servants to deliver the services honestly and efficiently clearly indicating the civil servants had been doing their jobs insincerely and inefficiently, which had been true very much. The minister also said that the transfer of State employees would be predictable without the influences of the political leaders. The news on setopati.net stated.
Former Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala had set the price of every elected office, political appointee, and the transfer of the civil servants. For example, a parliamentary slot was set at Rs 20 millions, the ministerial slot also at Rs 20 millions, and ambassadorial slots at various prices depending on the country ambassadors were to get assignments. Every civil servant paid the amount of two-year emoluments to get transfer to the custom offices, tax office, and the land registration offices.
Dr Govinda KC had been on the fast-unto-death with his ten demands including the ending of the mismanagement at the Maharajgunj Teaching Hospital and corruption in the Koirala administration. He had been charging that the Koirala government had been under the control of mafia. Wearing T-shirts with the slogan of ‘jailed the corrupt’, Nepalese youths had rallied behind Dr. KC.
http://www.ratopati.com/2015/03/22/219723.html
Dr KC had been on such a fast-unto-death in the past, too. The government had reached an agreement with Dr KC with the promise of meeting his demands but the government had never kept the promise. So, Dr KC had to take another strong step to force the government keep the promise it had made in the past. This time, Dr KC was ready to die if the government were not to meet his demands.
Senior leaders of UCPN-Maoist including Chairman Prachanda and Dr Baburam Bhattarai rallied behind Dr KC. Probably, the Koirala administration might give a fig for the demands of Dr KC despite the support of the political leaders and parties and the civil society, as one of his demands was for not giving a permit for opening new medical colleges in Nepal, as the ruling partners had already collected billions of rupees for giving the permit. The current government had already let die the husband (Nanda Prasad) of the Adhikari couple sitting for the fast-unto-death demanding the arrest of the murder of their son Krishna Prasad Adhikari. Dr KC might have the same fate without having any positive results.
The spokesperson for the Supreme Court of Nepal said that the apex court had served a subpoena to the chairman of Nepal Bar Association (NBA), and two other advocates for providing the proof of the corruption at the courts they had stated in the NBA’s declaration released after its national convention, and in the public interviews giving by the advocates, the news on the ratopati.com stated. NBA had issued a declaration after the thirteenth national conference held in Chitwan on March 19 to 21, 2015. The sixth clause of the declaration has stated the corruption at the courts. The Supreme Court of Nepal had demanded the proofs of the corruption cases at the courts from the NBA officials.
http://www.ratopati.com/2015/03/28/221246.html
I did not know whether the courts had been involved in the corruption or not but some court cases had been the matters of the public discussions. In the past, the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Nepal had given an audience to the political leaders such as Khum Bahadur Khadka, Rabindranath Sharma, and Govinda Raj Joshi while their corruption cases filed by the Commission on Investigation into Abuse of Authority (CIAA) had been pending at the Special Court. These politicians got acquitted based on the technical ground of filing the cases at the Special Court. However, the CIAA went to the Supreme Court and those cases were revived and the culprits had served the jail terms.
Nepalese non-governmental organizations had been equally involved in fraudulent dealings. They received the money from the donor agencies for launching different development activities benefiting the poor but they hardly reached the target groups and did nothing for the poor they were supposed to do something. Some NGOs never reached the target groups.
The irony is that the human rights organization that was to protect the human rights of individual had blasted the victim rather than speaking out in defense. For example, the Informal Sector Service Centre (INSEC) claimed to be the human rights organization affiliated to the CPN-UML had its chairperson chiding the victim of the rape because the perpetrator of rape happened to be the CPN-UML cadre.
The shameless corruption in the State administration has two main reasons: 1) high cost of party and national elections, 2) glory, power and wealth after getting elected to the position of power.
Political parties have commercialized the national and inter party elections. Leaders aspiring to the top job of party spent billions of rupees on the elections. Current Minister for Industry Mahesh Basnet proudly said that he had spent Rs 100 millions on getting KP Oli elected to the chairman of CPN-UML as the Nepalese media reported. So, Mr. Basnet was to recover his investment with interest on it and even with profits. KP Oli’s rival Madhav Nepal must have spent the similar amount but he lost the election.
The national elections also had the same disease of corruption. Each candidate at his/her constituency had to negotiate with the vote mafia. They had to pay high prices to the mafia holding the so-called vote banks for getting the chunk of votes. That was for the direct election to the parliament. For the indirect election to the parliament, any person wiling to be a parliamentarian needed to pay Rs 20 million to the concerned political party that recommended him/her to be the parliamentarian.
After getting elected to the chairman of CPN-UML, KP Oli became almost a dictator. He could dictate the prime minister. He made his cadres the ministers including Mahesh Basnet. What Mr. Oli needed was to recover the money spent on the election, and then get additional money for the rainy days. So, Mr. Oli has the power, glory and the money. For him, to get kickbacks for any decision he made had been regular businesses. Thus, the corruption had been so open.
CIAA knew it. What it could do had been nothing. CIAA could not arrest the Basnet for publicly stating so much of money spent on the election of KP Oli to the chairman of CPN-UML; neither the Election Commission could do anything about it. So, Basnet could openly state he needed to recover so much money he had spent on the election. How he was going to recover the expenditure was self-explanatory. CIAA had been an instrument to catch unfortunate State employees that unwisely received a few thousands rupees for doing something to the clients. The corruption had been at the massive scale at the highest political level than at the lower administrative levels.
The youths of certain quarters have come out against the corrupt political leaders and the cadres. Some youths wearing the T-shirts with the slogan of ‘jailed the corrupt’ at the Maharajgunj Teaching Hospital had rallied behind Dr Govinda KC holding fast-unto-death demanding to curb corruption among others. If the Nepalese youths in their entirety were to be against the corrupt politicians, the corruption in the national level would find its death. However, almost all the political cadres had been spoon-fed with the money political leaders had amassed illegally. Those cadres would go hungry without the corrupt politicians.
Corruption at the State level had been the main reason for the disintegration of the political parties. Senior leader of UCPN-Maoist in his recent public statement posted on the ratopati.com stated that the corruption had been the main reason for the breakup of his party into so many parties. He said that the party leaders had the illusion of completion of the revolution and they had been in power, and they could make something for them and also for their cadres whereas the leaders not having the State portfolios remained unsatisfied for not having power and money. It was applicable to all other political parties, too. As a result, every political party has several factions. Each faction of any political party not having ministerial portfolio always tried to tear down the rivals in power in other words each political leader tried to put him or her in the position of power no matter s/he had to do.
http://www.ratopati.com/2015/03/27/221015.html
The palace massacred on June 1, 2001 had to do with the unlimited power and wealth the then king had wielded. The ambitious person must have design to finish off the dynastic rule of one to set the dynasty of another on motion. But the Nepalese had been smart enough to put an end to the dynastic monarchy forever.
This political tendency of killing rivals and then getting into the power, and grabbing the State treasury for personal benefits had the historical background.
Take the example of Bhimsen Thapa: the prime minister for thirty years had to take his own life. He had suppressed his rivals that turned into his foes for thirty years. He could keep them under his thumb for so many years but not forever. His fortune had taken the downturn when the king’s favor to him had changed to worse. No matter what a great job he had done he got imprisoned for the real or frame-up charges. His spouse was paraded naked on the streets. That was the last straw on his tolerance. Bhimsen took his life in the prison.
Another notorious historical figure was Jung Bahadur Rana. He killed off everybody including his maternal uncle on his way to power. His rivals tried to get rid of him physically. He was forced to jump down the Trishuli River on horse back, from the Bhimsen Tower and so on. After each attempt on his life, he emerged stronger, and he ultimately became the challenger to the inept king. He even secured the title of the three-star king of two districts called Kaski and Lamjung. He became the absolute ruler. Then, he had everything: the power, the state revenue and the glory of being a three-star king. The State coffer became the privy purse of the Rana prime ministers.
The mindset of the political leaders had been similar to the Rana prime minister that had thought the State revenue was their private property. During the thirty-year period of the Panchayat regime, the king treated the State treasury as his personal belonging. His government seized the private property as and when the government wanted. So, the people having a large plot of land lived in terror of not knowing when the eyes of the government would fall on the land.
The king’s government expropriated the huge land in Bhaktapur and in Lalitpur for constructing two brick factories with the assistance of the Chinese government. The farmers and the owners of the land expropriated by the government went hungry but the government did not care about it. The prime minister needed to keep the king happy to keep his job and loot the people’s revenue. Then, why did the prime minister need to worry about the people? The two examples had been only a drop in the bucket of the State monopoly in the past.
Then, the panchayat was winded down in 1990. The two political parties such as NC and CPN-UML emerged victorious. Voters divided the people’s mandate between the NC and the CPN-UML. But the NC received a majority in the parliament. NC leaders thought that it was time for them to grab the State treasury and chase away the CPN-UML sympathizers from the State apparatus, and eliminate the CPN-UML if possible. Thousands of CPN-UML sympathizers lost the jobs in the State administration. It became intolerable to the CPN-UML members of the parliament.
CPN-UML members went wild in the parliament. CPN-UML leaders including the current KP Oli broke a number of chairs in the parliament to harass Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala. Mr. Koirala in turn did everything in his power to eliminate anything communist. He sold the China-made factories to the private companies, destroyed the China-made Kathmandu-Bhaktapur trolley bus, and the Sajha Bus Service only to open the door for his favorite bus private company to run buses in Kathmandu.
Listening to his kitchen cabinet, Mr. Girija Koirala thought that he had been very popular among the people for massive firing of the CPN-UML sympathizers from the administration and privatizing the State-owned factories and businesses. He wanted to be an absolute ruler. He needed the people’s mandate he thought that the voters had been waiting for him to give. He dissolved the parliament and announced a snap poll.
Voters sent Girija home giving less power than the CPN-UML. Voters gave a little bit more mandate than the NC but gave significant mandate to the former pancha parties compared to the mandate given to it in the previous election. Then, we had three major political parties. Any two of the parties could form a strong government but none of the political parties wanted to touch the third Pancha party called Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) that had twenty votes in the 205-member parliament.
Unfortunately for the party, the CPN-UML leaders thought that the voters had given them the absolute mandate even though they lacked even a simple majority in the parliament to elect a new prime minister. Its leaders continued its stand on forming a government shingle-handed. Ultimately, the king ordered the majority-party CPN-UML leader to form a new government. Manmohan became the Prime Minister, Madhav Nepal his deputy but Madhav’s tail waged the dog.
Deputy Prime Minister Madhav Nepal put back all the State employees: mainly the communist sympathizers fired by Girija. The Madhav administration paid them the full remuneration for the period they had been out of work. What a windfall to the CPN-UML sympathizers. Then, Madhav Nepal went to the rural areas to dig a footpath on camera. By this time, Madhav had succeeded to finish off the rising communist star young leader Madan Bhandari. Madhav had skillfully managed the widow of Bhandari blaming the then Prime Minister Girija for the apparently accidental death of Bhandari.
Following the constitution, the minority government of Manmohan-Madhav clique needed to get the vote of confidence in the parliament within six months but they ignored the constitutional provision and continued to enjoy the power and wealth for nine months. The opposition: NC and RPP started off putting pressure on the ruling party to secure vote of confidence in the parliament. The opposition became ready to bring the no-confidence vote in the parliament. Unexpectedly, Prime minister Manmohan Adhikari dissolved the parliament and announced a snap poll anticipating the CPN-UML could garner the majority.
The opposition took the issue to the Supreme Court of Nepal. Unfortunately, the ruling of former chief justice Biswonath Upadhaya became a partisan. He ruled against the prerogative of the prime minister and reinstated the parliament. The NC and the RPP jointly formed a new government that had run the administration as it liked rather than following the rule of law. The return of the NC-RPP rule had been almost like not only the pancha rule but also the Rana regime had been vivid. Anybody could call it misrule or the rule of corruption whichever s/he liked. It also gave birth to the Maoists.
Currently, the NC-CPN-UML-RPP conglomerate of the same people has been running the administration. Surely, they had put the administration on the massive scale of the corrupt. CIAA could do nothing. The parliament could not do anything, as the same corrupt people had the two-thirds majority in the parliament. Only some youths had come out to face the corrupt administration rallying behind Dr Govinda KC that had been determined to sacrifice his life for putting the pressure on the corrupt administration. Only the voters could really punish the corrupt politicians. The commercialization of the elections had been one of the reasons for the voters not being able to punish the corrupt politicians. Currently, the cost of election contributed tremendously to the corruption.
March 30, 2015
