Bad governance continues unabated in local bodies

Political parties major elements of fiduciary risk; MoLD to issue warning letters soon

Bishnu Prasad Aryal
Lalitpur, November 5

About Rs 45 billion is allocated for the local bodies every year but the budget is widely misused in the involvement of the political parties.

A government official belonging to an union said that only 30 per cent budget allocated for development is properly utilised in the local bodies. "Some 70 per cent is misused in the involvement of political parties by preparing fake documents of development activities," he claimed.

Dr jagadish Chandra Pokhrel, former Vice-Chairman of the National Planning Commission, also said that the political parties were involved in distributing development budget equally in many districts. "Political parties have captured the tenders in local bodies. This chaos is very serious problem, which should be immediately addressed from national level with political debate," he said. "The governments are centralised but local governance is falling down and down," he added.

The Ministry of Local Development (MoLD) assesses the performance and development activities of about 25 District Development Committees (DDC) every year. The MoLD has recently monitored 20 DDCs in the current fiscal year. Among them, the ministry has received reports of 16 districts--Gorkha, Lamjung, Kailali, Kanchanpur, Rautahat, Dang, Dailekh, Siraha, Dhanusha, Mahottari, Sunsari, Jhapa, Gulmi, Rupandehi, Syangja and Baglung, according to the MoLD. The reports of four districts--Makwanpur, Lalitpur, Dhading and Sankhuwasabha are yet to be compiled.

The violations of rules and regulations, and bad governance are rampant in the majority of districts, said the members of the monitoring teams. "Only Some districts such as Makwanpur have better improved the performance," said Rishi Raj Acharya, chief at the Monitoring and Evaluation Section, MoLD.

There are 75 DDCs and 99 municipalities including 41 newly declared but unauthorised municipals and about 3,770 village development committees across the country. The government has allocated about Rs 45 billion including some Rs 15 billion foreign aids for the local bodies.

The monitoring reports revealed that the misuse of development funds, rampant distribution of budget under pressure of political parties, violation of Local Self-Governance Act--2055BS, unethical selection of plans and implementation and poor auditing system.

Glimpses of bad governancehttp://www.thehimalayantimes.com/fullNews.php?headline=Bad+governance+unabated+in+local+bodies&NewsID=308199

• Lawmakers intervening into plans and misusing funds
• No records of plans and auditing system in VDCs
• No gross record of internal income and sources
• VDC secretaries taking extra 35-60% of allowances from allocated budget
• Lack of enforcement of , manuals, rules and regulations and government direction
• Plans and users' committees under capture of political parties
• Lack of people's participation in planning
• Political parties involving in tenders
• Local bodies not reporting to centresDispute among political parties
• Lump-sum allocation of budget without specific plans
• Duplication of development programmes

For example, Rautahat DDC was found allocating Rs 100,000 for Nepali Congress convention, Rs 10,000 for astudent union--ANNFSU, three thousands for Madhesi Youth Forum, Rs 478020 for different organisations and Es 886494 for miscellenous heads while Rupandehi DDC distributed Rs 50,000 for a political party and Rs 41,000 for Federation of Nepali Journalists against rules, the reports revealed. Tenders captured in Gorkha by Maoists and in Morang by CPN-UML along with in Mahottari, Siraha, Danusha and Jhapa similarly.

Bad governance and violation of rules and regulations in local bodies continue unabated encouraging irregularities despite annual monitoring. However, the government has failed to take any significant action to control the situation except issuing warning letters.

Dinesh Kumar Thapaliya, spokesperson for the MoLD, said that the ministry was preparing to issue warning letters to some DDCs soon as actions. "We are unable to disclose the names now," he added.

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Posted in: corruption,development,governance,politics

Local election a must to check misuse of devt funds

Bishnu Prasad Aryal
KATHMANDU: July 2
The main opposition Nepali Congress (NC) has rejected the proposal of the Ministry of Local Development that seeks to restructure the political mechanism at the local bodies on the basis of votes that political parties bagged in the Constituent Assembly elections.

The NC was responding to the ministry’s call for suggestions from 30 political parties represented in the CA on whether to go for fresh elections or revamp the mechanism on the basis of CA votes. The deadline to offer suggestions expires on July 9.

The ministry is set to table the proposal to the cabinet, stressing restructuring of the political mechanism in all 75 district development committees (DDCs), 58 municipalities and 3,915 village development committees (VDCs) on the basis of CA votes, presenting fresh elections as an option, according to ministry secretary Sushil Ghimire.

NC Vice-President Ram Chandra Paudel said the revamping of the political mechanism on the basis of CA votes is not acceptable as the votes will not mean much once the CA’s term expires on August 31.

“There is rampant corruption in local bodies and misuse of development funds. The only solution is holding local body elections as soon as possible,” Paudel argued at a meeting with Prime Minister Jhala Nath Khanal today after submitting a report on the proposal to Khanal.

“We are also for holding local body elections as per Article 139 (1) of the Interim Constitution,” said Dinesh Kumar Thapaliya, spokesperson for the ministry.

“If the government is not ready to hold elections, an interim local body mechanism should be formed to regulate the activities of local bodies till next local elections,” he said.

“We should either go for election or form a new mechanism to check massive misuse of development funds in local bodies,” Thapaliya reasoned.

After the abolition of monarchy, five major political parties had decided to nominate their representatives in local bodies in the absence of elected representatives.

The civic bodies have been running without elected representatives for about nine years.

If the ministry has its way, the revamped mechanism will have one representative each for 3 per cent of CA votes with a catch that a political party cannot claim more than 50 percent of total seats in each mechanism.

The proposal has proposed five representatives in each VDC and seven

in each DDC and municipality. “Moreover, the executive coordinator or the deputy must be a woman and other members should be selected so as to make the body inclusive,” Thapaliya said.

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Posted in: corruption,Democracy,development,governance,politics

Govt intending to distribute Rs 900M to political cadres

Bishnu Prasad Aryal
Kathmandu, June 9

The Ministry of Physical Planning and Works (MoPPW) under political pressure has created new development plans of Rs 900 million at the end of the fiscal year intending to distribute the amount to the cadres of the ruling political parties.

The MoPPW created new 393 road plans of Rs 220 million about a month ago under 249 of the Budget Book at the end of the fiscal year. The Ministry of Finance (MoF) and the National Planning Commission have already approved the plans, according to the MoPPW.

The plans of Rs 220 are said to be approved under the pressure from MoPPW Minister Top Bahadur Rayamajhi. Of Rs 220, some 35 per cent will go for Rayamajhi's district Arghakhachi and about 20 per cent for Law Minister Prabhu Sah's district Rautahat while remaining portion for other districts, the government officials requesting anonymity told exclusively. Both Rayamajhi and Sah are from UCPN-Maoist party.

Following the first step, the cadres of the ruling parties--UCPN-Maoist, CPN-UML, CPN-ML, Madheshi Janadhikar Forum-Nepal among others demanded the MoPPW to create similar new programmes of Rs 680 million. The MoPPW approved these programmes and sent to the MoF and NPC for approval two weeks ago. "It will take about two weeks for approval. "How will the allocated budget be properly implemented in last two weeks of the fiscal year?" the officials wondered.

The government allocated Rs 500 million for about 3,000 road programmes under 249 of the regular budget programme for the fiscal year. The budget allocation varies from Rs 50,000 to Rs 300,000 to each of such plans. If such a road project links two districts, up to Rs 2 million is allocate for one programme.

The government officials are skeptical over the implementation of the new budget allocated in the last hour in development activities. "The regular budget allocated for the current fiscal year is unlikely to be spent more than 80 per cent. So the new budget is impossible to be implemented in time and more likely to be misused by the political cadres," they said.

KATHMANDU: The Ministry of Finance (MoF) has been preparing to transfer the budget of a development region to another region against the fiscal budget speech. Rs 60.7 million allocated for road development in the Far-West Development Region and an unknown amount of Mid-West Development Region are being transferred to other regions, said MoPPW officials. "The MoF did not provide additional budget for well undergoing projects as in the past years despite its commitment owing to low revenue collection and government plan to allocate unused budget for energy bank," they said. --

A meeting of the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on June 7 directed the MoPPW and the MoF not to transfer balance of payment to the smaller projects except national priority P1 and natural disaster rescue programmes. It also ordered the government not to release any budget to the NGOs in the remaining period of the current fiscal year.

NPC Vice-Chairman Dr Dinesh Chandra Devkota said that the NPC approved the MoPPW programmes of Rs 220 about a month ago thinking the programmes of new government. "The government can allocate additional budget up to 10 per cent of the total national budget," he said. "We approve only programmes. The MoF and MoPPW are responsible for budget implementation. I cannot say how they allocate the budget," he added.

"There is no chance of approval of the remaining programme of Rs 680 million following the PAC direction," said Devkota. "We will discourage ill-intentions."

Minister Rayamanjhi, who is in Gulmi district visit now, said on phone that the projects of Rs 220 were already started and going on. "The government is yet to approve Rs 680 million. We will monitor and not let them misuse the development funds," he claimed.

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Posted in: corruption,governance,politics

8.1 tones waste dumped in Mt Everest collected

Bishnu Prasad Aryal
Namche (Solukhumbu), May 30
About five metric tonnes of waste dumped in the Everest region will be brought to Kathmandu within two couples of days.
In the initiation of Everest Summiteers Association (ESA), the government of Nepal, Eco Himal, Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA), Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee were involved in the collection of the waste from April 17 to May 27. The government provided Rs 7.5 million, Carlsberg Beer Rs 2 million, NMA Rs 2 Million, Laxmi Bank Rs 500,000 and donors from Sweden US$ 110,000 for the Saving Everest Campaign attempted from 2008 by ESA.
A total of 29 mountaineers were involved in collecting waste from base-camp to 8,700m of Everest more than a month.
They collected 8.1 metric tonnes of waste dumped in the Everest region since 1953 at Namche where 3.2 metric tonnes of waste, specially plastics and papers will be disposed within month at Namche and rest of the amount including oxygen cylinder, helicopter debris, metals, cans and bottles will be send to Kathmandu.
Wongchu Sherpa, president of the ESA, said that 4.9 metric tonnes of waste would be brought to Kathmandu by air by tomorrow. “We will suggest to keep some of the materials in museums and others will be handed over to the government,” he said.
Sherpa further said that the campaign was initiated after the foreigners asked me garbage dumped in Everest dirty persons who dumped the
waste at Everest. "Then we started campaigning to clean Everest targeting to collect at least 8 tonnes of garbage dumped in the highest peak of the world," he said.
"We will continue to clean the region next year too," he said. "Cleaning once is not enough but the government should make policy to discourage abandoning waste on the Himalaya," he said.
Carrying about 150kgs of materials each person, about 35,000 foreign visitors accompanying some 80,000 porters and helpers trek to the Everest every year, according to the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation (MoTCA).
Pasang Sherpa, mountaineer involved in collecting waste, said that they had to work up to minus 40 degree Celsius amidst challenges of death threats. "We had to spend 18 hours at a camp of about seven hours at the high altitude," he said. "We slept only two hours few nights on the high snow during the campaign."
Everest climber Pema Diki Sherpa, 23, the only woman involved in the collection of waste from Everest, said that the collection was challenging
more than a death. "While climbing we go up on the fixed root but we had to search the waste covered with snow along the roots," she said.

However, the government was indifferent to clean the waste for about six decades, Wongchu blamed. “It failed to address the issue taking legal action,” he added.
Murari Bahadur Karki, joint secretary at the MoTCA, said that there was law of confiscating desposit of US$ 4,000 to trek on Everest if they throw waste on the Himalaya. "However, it is yet to be implemented fully," he said. "Both private and government should work jointly to get success," he said.
Karki also said that there was a need of cleaning other Himalayan peaks of the country.
About 2,000 metric tonnes of waste has been dumped in the Himalayan peaks and some 80 metric tonnes of waste at Everest region since 1953.

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Corruption in local bodies continues unabated

 Monitoring efforts go down the drain

Bishnu Prasad Aryal
Kathmandu, March 30

The local bodies, in consort with government agencies and political parties, are misusing public funds and resources in many districts, according to a government monitoring team.

The Ministry of Local Development (MoLD) has just completed the monitoring of the performances in 15 district development committees and eight municipalities. The monitoring in four districts are undergoing.

It monitored the performances of 25 districts and 11 municipalities in the last fiscal year for the first time. Two local development officers were suspended for irregularities.

There are 75 DDCs and 58 municipals in the country. The MoLD has planned to complete the monitoring in municipals within current fiscal year and DDCs in the next fiscal.

In its report last year, the MoLD team said local bodies were embezzling development funds by distributing them to political parties and duplicating programmes.

The trend continues unabated despite monitoring, according to the MoLD officials. "We have been unable to control corruption despite our monitoring efforts," said the high ranking MoLD officials.

In Sunsari, Rs 4.2 million meant for development activities was shared among government offices including the CDO, the police, Women Development Office and Land Revenue Office in the last fiscal year, according to the MoLD assessment report.

Prem Prasad Bhattari, local development officer in Sunsari, claimed that no fund was distributed to any office or party without process but provided fund for the Nepal Police to buy corrogated zink plates.

Similarly, in Rajbiraj, the municipality board meeting decided to provide public land for the building construction of all political parties including UCPN-Maoist, Nepali Congress and CPN-UML in the municipality in the current fiscal year, according to the MoLD report. However, Hari Narayan Ram Rauniyar, executive chief of Rajbiraj, denied making any decision to provide public land for any political party despite their several applications.

The MoLD monitoring team headed by under-secretary Dhan Bahadur Shrestha, had assessed the performance and overall activities in Sunsari District Development Committee and Rajbiraj Municipality in Saptari district recently.

According to the government officials, both of the decisions are against existing laws. "The government development fund cannot be given to other government offices under the different ministries," Dinesh Kumar Thapaliya, spokesperson for the MoLD, said.

"In another case, only the cabinet can decide upon the public land to provide to any organisation or institution," he added.

Thapaliya said that the Monitoring Unit headed by MoLD secretary would evaluate the report and would report it to the national monitoring committee coordinated by chief secretary that includes representatives from the Office of Prime Minister and the National Planning Commission.

"The national committee will direct them to correct the minor mistakes. If there is serious corruption, Governance Unit in MoLD will either take departmental action or recommend to the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority for the action," he explained.

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Posted in: corruption,Democracy,development,governance

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