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Earthquakes In Nepal-XVII
The Government of Nepal was going cap in hand begging for funding for the reconstruction in the aftermath of the heavy quakes that hit Nepal on April 25, 2015. The government had invited a number of countries to participate in the hat-in-hand meeting to be held on June 25, 2015. The government was going to use the Post Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) as a tool to extract money from the donors. The donors had been reluctant to turn over any cash or checks to the government of Nepal even after the distressful quakes. They knew how the government would spend the money. So, the donors would commit to help the Nepalese but would try to bypass the government as much as possible.
The National Planning Commission had prepared the PDNA. The total loss and damages caused by the quakes was estimated at $ 7,065 billions in the monetary values stated in the PDNA. The loss and damages done to the private sector was $ 5.404 billions and to the public sector was $ 1.661, and the loss in the personal incomes was $ 171 millions.
The PDNA stated, “The total recovery needs of NPR 669 billion or US$ 6.7 billion take into account the cost of reconstruction with better specifications, equipment, improved governance and risk reduction. While calculating the recovery needs, it does not consider the replacement value, particularly with respect to the housing sector. It specifies a core house with a minimum area as the recovery need, and estimates the total needs on the basis of the cost of construction per square feet.” It also stated that the estimated GPD (gross domestic product) growth reduced to 3.0% from 4.6% due to the quakes.
The government had put a great emphasis on mobilizing the resources for rebuilding the quake-destructed-and-damaged infrastructures, buildings, private houses, and temples. So, the government invited more than 40 nations and organizations, and sent special invitations to China and India for attending the donors’ meeting on June 25, 2015. Prime Minister Sushil Koirala had made a special telephone call to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi appealing him to attend the donor’s meeting. Finance Minster Dr Ram Sharan Mahat extended a special invitation to Prime Minister Modi while the finance minister was in India. Prime Minister Modi sent his foreign minister Sushma Swaraj. China also sent its foreign minister to attend the donors’ meeting.
China and India had the strategic interest in Nepal but once they were closer to each other the importance of Nepal as a strategic partner diminished. China and India had even signed off the agreement on opening trade route via Lipulek bypassing Nepal. The Nepalese intellectuals in particular and common folks in general had been demanding to scrap the agreement China and India reached on Lipulek. Probably, China and India would not compete for their respective influence on Nepal, as the strategic importance of Nepal had been considerably less than used to be when China and India were at odds.
India had stationed its army at Lipulek in the aftermath of the Chinese invasion of India in 1962. The concerned State agency representative had informed the then absolute King Mahendra about the occupation of Lipulek by the Indian army. The king told the representative to keep quiet. Now, Home Minster Bamdev Gautam said the same thing to the representatives of the civil society that went to submit the memo to him on the agreement China and India had reached on Lipulek ignoring the area belonged to Nepal once China had vehemently endorsed.
Donors had been always empathetic to the Nepalese that the perpetual quality of being very friendly, happy, courteous and generous to everybody even at the time of the national disaster such as the quakes of April 25, 2015. So, the international search-and-rescue teams came in such as a large number that the quake-death toll had been at the minimum possible. Most of the quake-injured had the opportunity of living normally again thanks to the quick response of the international search-and-rescue teams to the devastating quakes.
The international community wanted to help such Nepalese folks but the government was not representatives of the people in the sense of being sincere to the people. Since the rule of Prithvi Narayan Shah, none of the rulers had been the representative nature of the Nepalese people. Most of the rulers had the criminal background including the current Prime Minister Sushil Koirala involved in hijacking a plane from Nepal to India ransacking the plane for the banknotes it had carried for the Nepal Bank in 1960s.
Donors had been concerned with the money how the government of Nepal would spend. They knew that the political cadres fight for getting the construction contracts awarded by the government agencies for their respective contractors. None could trust such contractors would perform the contract jobs correctly following the contract agreements. Consequently, huge resources had been wasted both by overstating the contract works and under doing the quality of the contract jobs. Nepalese had lost the opportunity of being better off despite the so much pouring of the foreign assistance to such a small country.
Probably, the international community would commit some assistance to the government of Nepal for being polite but not with whole-heartedly. Even such assistance would be sufficient for rehabilitation of the quake victims provided the government would sincerely and properly use such assistance. The misery to Nepalese had been that the law-enforcement officials from the prime minister, ministers and down to the secretaries to the ministries had been the law-breakers to serve their political, personal, and family gains.
If the immediate past performances of the current government was any guide then we could not anticipate that the ministers and secretaries to the ministries would live up to our expectation of their sincerity. For example, while answering to the questions about irregularities in purchasing and distributing tents and tarpaulins to the quake victims, the secretary to the Ministry of Urban Development bluntly told the members of the parliamentary committee on public accounts that the lawmakers had looted the tents causing the failure of keeping the exact records of the number of tents distributed. Personal secretary to the finance minister had attempted to bring back the tin sheets sent to Nuwakot for the quake victims. Probably, the international community would be hesitant to trust such ministers and secretaries.
Would the international community have confidence in Prime Minister Sushil Koirala that the prime minister would correct the irregularities in managing the relief supplies for rebuilding the quake-damaged economy? Surely, the international community would not be so enthusiastic to trust the prime minister either. They had seen that the prime minister had repeatedly committed to punish the people involved in misusing the relief supplies provided to the quake victims. His commitments had remained in the words not in deeds. So, the personal secretary to the finance minister, and the secretary to the ministry of urban development and the concerned ministers had committed the irregularities with impunity so far.
Nepal had no problem of money, Finance Minister Dr Ram Sharan Mahat had proudly said recently in public but understandably he failed to say that Nepal had lacked the sincere secretaries and ministers to effectively implement the development projects and complete them within time and the cost. Time overrun and cost overrun had been regular practices in the implementation of the state-run development projects. Where the money went everybody knew it went to the pockets of the ministers, secretaries, political leaders and cadres otherwise how could these Nepalese political leaders spend billions of rupees on maintaining their cadres?
Nepal had been flushed with the funds. Remittances had been increased after the quakes hit Nepal. Nepalese working elsewhere in the world had increased the money sending to Nepal almost by 20% after the quakes, the Nepalese media stated. The World Bank had committed to a half billion dollar for Nepal to help in building the quake-hit economy subject to the approval of its board of director. The rich non-resident Nepalese working in all the contents of the world also had committed to build number of houses for the quake victims but the government had invited none of those millionaire and billionaire non-resident Nepalese to the so-called donors’ meeting. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had committed one billion dollars as a soft loan to Nepal when he first visited Nepal in 2014. The government of Nepal could draw such a loan for rebuilding the Nepalese economy. But the government was primarily focused on the rich countries to extract a few billion dollars gratis. Everybody could guess the intention of the politicians and top-level bureaucrats running the Nepalese administration.
I hope the donors’ meeting would be one of the successes of Prime Minister Sushil Koirala and his Finance Minister Dr Ram Sharan Mahat and Foreign Minister Mahendra Bahadur Pandey. The finance ministry would take the credit for any success of the meeting. The donors needed to trust the government for its PDNA, and for sincerely using the donors’ money for the benefits of the needy Nepalese not absolutely using for the political gains. However, the chance of happening such things in Nepal had been unlikely for some time to come. Ministers, politicians and high-level bureaucrats had successfully earned the merits of being shady.
June 24, 2015
