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Earthquake In Nepal–VII
Relief Supplies/Customs Clearance/PM Disaster Relief Fund
"We have received things like tuna fish and mayonnaise. What good are those things for us? We need grains, salt and sugar," BBC News quoted Finance Minister Ram Sharan Mahat. Dr Mahat has ignored that Nepalese people buy and eat tuna fish and mayonnaise. These foodstuffs are available in the Kathmandu market. Dr Mahat also did not realize that these food items are ready to eat at any time. These were the foodstuffs quake victims could immediately eat at any place at any time. Thank god Dr Mahat did not say that he would sell those relief supplies and buy food grains, salt and sugar as the then panchayat government of king Birendra said in 1980s.
Dr Mahat’s statement reminded me the incident happened about 30 years ago when I was working at the then SATA (Swiss Association for Technical Assistance) in Nepal. At that time, SATA purchased 10 tons of rice in Thailand and shipped it to Nepal for the drought-hit Nepalese. I was the program officer and directly helping the director of SATA. He sent me to see what had happened to the rice SATA provided. I went to the home ministry. The home ministry official told me that the ministry sent the rice to the Nepal Food Corporation (NFC): the State-run corporation for purchase and sale of foodstuffs. Obviously, the ministry sold the rice to the NFC. I went to the NFC, and met with the concerned official. I asked him, “Has the rice SATA provided gone to the target people?” He said, “The rice is high quality. We will sell the rice in the Kathmandu market, then we will buy corn and send it to the drought-stricken people.” I did not know whether the rice reached the target people or not.
The next trouble the aid providers had been encountering was the delay in the customs clearance of the relief stuffs sent to Nepal for the quake victims. In the name of checking the relief stuffs the customs officials have been taking time. Everybody knows that customs officials are rent-seeking creatures. Delaying the customs clearance means they are seeking something. If anybody greases the palm of customs officials every thing gets out of the customs. So, it has been easy to smuggle gold or anything anybody likes out of the Nepal customs. But the customs officials delaying the customs clearance of the stuffs intended for the quake victims means they are abusing the authority. The Commission on Investigation into Abuse of Authority (CIAA) needed to get the picture of what has been happening at the customs office in the Kathmandu international airport. The immediate customs clearance of the relief stuffs was vital otherwise the unscrupulous actions of the customs officials would cost the quake victims many lives.
The UN has said that relief supplies arrived at the Kathmandu airport for the quake victims have been held in the name of the customs clearance. On Saturday, May 2, 2015, UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said Nepal had a duty to provide faster customs clearance for relief supplies, the BBC NEWS stated. Baroness Amos drew the attention of Prime Minister Sushil Koirala to the agreement Nepal had signed with the UN in 2007 for fast customs clearance for relief aid in a disaster. “The Nepalese government should not be using peacetime customs methodology," the BBC NEWS quoted Jamie McGoldrick: UN representative in Nepal.
For the public information on the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund and how it works, a short write-up is posted on directionkathmandu.com under the title of “What is the PM’s Disaster Relief Fund and What it is not?” The prime minister has its name only in the fund but he has nothing to do with the fund if we believe in the write-up. Vice-chairperson of National Planning Commission is the coordinator and eight secretaries to the different ministers are the members of the committee to manage this fund. They make the decisions unanimously.
One thing is clear that the prime minister is not on the committee managing the fund but his persons are on it. The prime minister could dictate the Vice-chairperson and the secretaries what to do and what not, too. They are the pets of the prime minister he has appointed. So, the statement of the prime minister is not on the committee does not make sense. The prime minister could do anything he wants using those people on the committee. That must be the reason why Prime Minister Sushil Koirala has been sitting on the huge sum of money collected for the floods-and-landslide victims in 2014. Why those Vice-chairperson and eight secretaries did not do anything with the money collected for the floods-and-landslide victims. Are they accountable to managing the fund collected for the victims? If so, the question is why the floods-and-landslide victims have not received those resources collected for them, yet. Prime Minister Sushil Koirala might think that the victims have forgotten it but I have not and some other people also have not.
If the donations collected for the quake victims were to deposit in the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund, Prime Minister Sushil Koirala should guarantee that the money would be sent to the benefits of the target people without delay. Then, it would make sense that the government is surely for helping the quake victims. But we have seen that the prime minister has not been accountable to the floods-and-landslide victims. So, he has been keeping the money in the fund in his name, and let the victims suffer from the loss of their property perpetually.
The international community needed to understand this situation of the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund in the historical background. Donors would take a long time to withdraw the money from the fund. That is for sure. The victims might suffer from the loss of property forever once the donations landed in the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund. No matter what the prime minister would say and others on his behalf, Prime Minister Koirala had been a very lousy decision maker in the past. So, his persons on the committee and Prime Minster Koirala might take indefinite time to use the money in the fund for the quake victims.
May 3, 2015
