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The present political scenario raises some questions: Are we destined for prolonged political instability? Will Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal continue for a limited period or full term? Generally, the electoral system is blamed for instability, as it produces a hung parliament with no single party securing a majority in the House of Representatives. But a hung parliament can hardly be blamed, as in parliamentary system coalition culture has been practiced in many countries in South Asia and Europe. We cannot blame the parliamentary system, which envisages joint responsibility, as it is also called the ‘Cabinet System’ in which the Prime Minister is held as the senior among the equals. Ministers are responsible not only to the Prime Minister but to the House as well. The job of a PM is to coordinate among the ministers. However, it is also called the prime ministerial system, as the parties, while contesting general elections, informally select their leaders who lead the election campaign. A PM is changed, of course, but with the change in the confidence of the House. It is never bargained among the parties or groups before a PM is elected as the leader of the House. We have a history of frequent changes of guard since the election to the Constitution Assembly. We have had about a dozen governments from 2008 to 2023. Interestingly, the same old faces have replaced one another all along. It shows a handful of leaders controlling their parties and the absence of inner democracy in party folds. No doubt, periodic elections are held in the parties but candidates not enjoying the endorsement of leaders hardly win such elections. Worldwide, several popular PMs have continued for years. But the same leader serving as PM time and time again is a case unique to Nepal. It is a truism that political power is required to do good to the people. It is a means. But when a means becomes an end in itself by becoming an insatiable hunger for power, it corrupts leaders absolutely. Perhaps, this is the reason behind instability. Political parties, especially the major ones, are not ready to learn from the past, mend their ways and develop a coalition culture for which leaders have to make adjustments with other parties, in the best interest of the country. Politics in Nepal appears to be treated as an enterprise where an entrepreneur succeeds if he takes the risk of investing even in unfavorable circumstances. If he invests and uses his maneuvering skills, his success is more guaranteed. It has been proved recently that success in politics depends on the art of maneuvering and the impossible becomes possible. In the last election, the Nepali Congress (NC) secured 89 seats (32 percent of total seats), the CPN-UML got 78 seats (28.36 percent) and the third largest party, the CPN (Maoist Centre) got 32 seats (11.63 percent) in the House of Representatives. But the third largest party is leading the government. This is because Dahal knows that the leaders of the first and the second largest parties can neither form alliances themselves nor can they form their own government without support from the Maoists and some other fringe parties. In such a situation, it was easier for Dahal to float his own candidature for premiership and bargain with the NC and the UML to accept his leadership. First, he approached the NC for forming a government under his leadership, only to find the largest party reluctant. Then he approached the UML, which accepted the idea. But then Dahal found relying solely on the UML support for his government not a very good idea, so he sought and got the support of the NC in the vote of confidence. Dahal courting the NC made the UML suspicious. As anticipated, Dahal ditched the Maoists’ alliance with the UML by supporting the Congress candidate in the presidential election. This was perhaps meant to maintain a balance of power in the parliament, given that the UML has already bagged the position of Speaker. Dahal perhaps hopes to be able to serve a full term by managing to keep the current ruling coalition intact. Let’s hope that our leaders show maturity by focusing more on political stability than on satiating their thirst for power.

Ram Sahaya Yadav has been elected as the third Vice-President of Nepal. In the election held at the Lhotse Hall of Parliament building in New Baneshwor on Friday, Janata Samajbadi Party leader Yadav was elected as the Vice-President. He was elected as the Vice-President defeating Astha Laxmi Shakya of the CPN-UML and Mamata Jha of the Janata Samajbadi Party. Out of 52,628 weightage-based votes, Yadav secured 30, 328 votes while his closest contender Shakya garnered 16, 328 votes. Similarly, Jha obtained 2, 537 votes. Yadav was supported by ruling coalition parties—Nepali Congress, CPN (Maoist Center), CPN (Unified Socialist), Janata Samajbadi Party, Janamat Party and Rastriya Janamorcha Party. According to the Election Commission, out of 332 voters of federal Parliament and 550 voters of Province Assembly, 829 cast their votes. The weightage of a vote cast by a member of federal Parliament was equivalent to 79 whereas the weightage of a vote cast by a PA member was equivalent to 48. The Election Officer’s office said that 53 lawmakers were absent in the election. A total of 42 lawmakers of Rastriya Prajatantra Party and four of Nepal Workers and Peasants Party did not cast their votes. Two types of ballot papers were printed for the election. The ballot for the federal Parliament members was of red color while it was of green color for the Province Assembly members. The Vice-President shall be assigned to look after affairs in the absence of the President. The tenure of the Vice-President is five years. Parmananda Jha was elected as the first Vice-President of Nepal in 2008 while Nanda Bahadur Pun from the UCPN (Maoist) was elected as the second Vice- President of the country in November 2015. Who is Vice-President elect Ram Sahaya Yadav? Ram Sahaya Yadav was born on July 24, 1970. He started his political career from the Nepal Sadhbhawana Party. Yadav was elected as a member of the first Constituent Assembly in 2007. He became the General Secretary of the Federal Socialist Party formed after the unification of Madhesi Janadhikari Forum Nepal and Federal Socialist Party in 2015. Yadav, who was seriously injured during the Madhes Movement in 2015, was elected as a member of the House of Representatives from Bara-2 in 2017. He also became the General Secretary of the Samajbadi Party formed after the unification of Federal Socialist Forum Nepal and Naya Shakti Party in 2018. Yadav, who was appointed as the Minister for Forest and Environment in 2021, was re-elected as a member of the House of Representatives from Bara-2 in 2022.      

Corruption continues to thrive at all three levels of government, despite the anti-graft body’s claim of having a strong monitoring mechanism in place. Hardly any day goes by when there is no incident of corruption, mainly concerning civil servants taking a bribe, in the media. Senior journalist Hari Bahadur Thapa says news stories about bribery that comes in the media are usually minor ones, and that there are much larger corruption cases taking place in the shadows. Thapa suspects the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) is deliberately turning its attention away from big cases because of high-level political involvement. “The CIAA is failing to catch big fishes. It has abandoned the investigation of big scandals involving political leaders and focusing only on small cases,” he says. “This is because all the state mechanisms have been captured by the political parties.” After a long gap, the Special Court in Kathmandu last week slapped two former ministers—Badri Prasad Neupane and Tek Bahadur Gurung— with nine-year jail terms and Rs 12m fine. But it was a one-off case of politicians getting convicted of corruption in the country. In Nepal, even courts are known to delay the hearing of cases involving politicians or those people who have high-level political connections. A cursory look at the CIAA documents also shows where its focus lies when it comes to curbing and investigating corruption cases. People are registering more and more complaints with the CIAA.  A majority of complaints (4,459) received by the commission in the fiscal year in 2021/22 were in the form of written applications. Complaints were also recorded via postal service, e-mail, and directly to the CIAA website. Around half of the complaints (50.55percent), which also include those from previous fiscal years, are currently under investigation at the CIAA central office. Among the various regional offices of the anti-graft body, the highest number of complaints is being handled by the Bardibas office (8.68percent), while the Nepalgunj office (3.07percent) and Pokhara office (4.59 percent) have the lowest number of complaints, according to the report. Likewise, the Kathmandu head office of the CIAA has settled the highest number of complaints (9,509) compared to its branches. Among the offices outside of Kathmandu, the Butuwal office had the highest percentage of settled complaints (84.52 percent), while the Bardibas office had the highest number of settled complaints (1,196).  The Itahari office of the CIAA settled the fewest number of complaints in terms of percentage (53.36 percent), while the Nepalgunj office had the fewest number of settled complaints (524). The report also showed that approximately half of the complaints filed at both the head office and regional offices of the CIAA were against the local governments and their agencies (47.08 percent). About 40.96percent of the complaints were against agencies under the federal government. In terms of provinces, the highest number of complaints was received against the offices in Bagmati, followed by Madhes, Lumbini, and Koshi. Number of corruption complaints against provincial government offices in Gandaki, Karnali, and Sudurpashchim was comparatively fewer. In terms of agencies under provincial and local governments, the highest number of complaints has been filed in Madhes (28.10 percent), while the lowest was in Gandaki (8.47 percent). Lumbini accounted for 15 percent, Sudurpashchim 13.73 percent, and Koshi 12.79 percent of the total number of complaints filed. Bagmati and Karnali accounted for 11.78 percent and 10 percent respectively. The report also showed that complaints against sectors such as federal affairs, education, health, land administration, forest and environment, physical infrastructure, and home affairs were comparatively higher. A significant number of complaints were related to fake academic certificates and amassing of illegal properties. In terms of sector-wise distribution, complaints in federal affairs (including local government) were the highest (33.14 percent), followed by education (15.31 percent); land administration (7.71 percent), forest and environment (4.62 percent); health and population (3.99 percent); physical infrastructure and transport (3.88 percent); home administration (3.75 percent); tourism, industry and commerce (3.23 percent); energy, water resources and irrigation (3.09 percent); water supply and urban development (2.98 percent); finance and revenue (1.96 percent); agriculture and livestock (1.88 percent); and communication and information technology (0.99 percent). After preliminary investigation, the CIAA head office settled 9,509 (77.31 percent) of the 12,300 complaints filed in 2021/22, said the report. The commission’s branch offices settled 7,660 (63.67 percent) out of 12,031 complaints. In total, the CIAA settled 17,169 (70.56 percent) out of 24,331 complaints recorded during the fiscal year 2021/22. The remaining 7,162 complaints have been carried over for 2022/23. In 2021/22, following a comprehensive investigation, the CIAA decided to register charge sheets in 130 complaints. Including one charge sheet decided in 2020/21, the commission filed a total of 131 charge sheets at the Special Court in 2021/22. Additionally, the anti-graft commission issued 80 suggestions and 17 written instructions, while 637 complaints are in the notice service process. It also took 41 other decisions. In 2021/22, the CIAA held 79 meetings and made 975 decisions related to filing charge-sheets, appeals, reviews, dispositions, and pending of investigation, among other matters. Of the 131 cases charge-sheeted in 2021/22, 35 were related to causing damage to public property, 34 to seeking illegal benefits, and 32 to corruption. Seven cases were related to illegal amassing of properties, six to fake academic certificates, five to revenue leakage, and 12 to other offenses. In 2021/22, the CIAA also filed appeals at the Supreme Court against decisions of the Special Court in 57 cases. A total of 637 complaints — 42 against illegal amassing of properties and 595 others — filed in 2021/22 have been kept in disposition as per Clause 19 (12) of CIAA Act, 1991, and Rule 10 CIAA Regulations, 2002. The performance of the Special Court, through which cases related to corruption are settled, is dismal. For instance in the fiscal year 2078/79, altogether 792 cases were filed, but the court delivered on only 339 of them. Most of the cases filed at the Special Court are related to illegal earning, policy corruption, fake certificate, bribery, and money laundering. Nepal was ranked in the 110th position out of 180 countries in the corruption perception index report of Transparency International in 2022. The country had ranked at 117th spot in 2021. But despite the year-by-year improvement in corruption perception, observers say it does not take account of irregularities that are happening at the local level. They say corruption and irregularities are thriving at provincial and local levels, and there are no reliable mechanisms to check them. This is true particularly in development projects, which have boomed in provinces after Nepal adopted federalism. According to the National Vigilance Center (NVC), corruption has flourished mainly in big development projects. In one of its reports, the NVC states that the quality of big infrastructure projects is seriously compromised due to nexus between politicians and contractors. To check the quality of infrastructure projects, NVC has set up laboratories but it falls short of sufficient human and other resources. Padmini Pradhananga, president of Transparency International Nepal, says anti-graft agencies in Nepal are not paying attention to the corruption happening at the local level. “We are receiving complaints that corruption and irregularities are happening in the health, education and construction sectors,” says. “There are also reports of the CIAA keeping big corruption scandals on hold and investigating only small cases.”

After the import control measures led to a big slump in revenue collection, the government first lifted the over seven-month ban on the imports of automobiles, liquors, and expensive mobile sets effective from mid-December last year. Then, on January 20, the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) annulled the nearly year-long provision of cash margin of up to 100 percent in the banks to open letters of credit (LCs) for the imports of around 300 goods. However, the decisions of the government and NRB to roll back their previous steps, which were introduced a year ago to tackle the worsening problems in the external sector of the economy have not been fruitful for the government in terms of meeting the revenue targets. According to the Financial Comptroller General Office (FCGO), the government’s revenue collection continues to remain dismal totaling Rs 584.29bn as of mid-March, 2023 compared to Rs 688.38bn in the same period of the last fiscal year 2021/22. The revenue collected so far is not enough even to cover the recurrent expenditure of the government which stands at Rs 610.21bn as of mid-March, 2023. The Department of Customs (DoC) and Inland Revenue Department (IRD), the major agencies of the country's tax regime, have reported dismal revenue figures as of March 15 of the current fiscal year. According to DoC, it collected Rs 250bn, which is 58 percent of the target of Rs 433bn. “The impact of the policy reversal on import control has not been reflected in the customs revenue,” a senior DoC official said.  The country receives nearly half of its revenue through taxing imported goods. Import taxes on vehicles are among the largest sources of revenue. But even after the government lifted the import ban, automobile dealers have not rushed to import the vehicles.  In fact,  the automobile dealers have not yet cleared around 2,800 four-wheelers parked at Birgunj and other customs yards of the country, according to the customs officials. The vehicles were imported in recent months based on LCs opened before the import restrictions were imposed in April last year. “We have long been asking the auto dealers to get them cleared but they have refused to do so, complaining about the non-availability of loans in the automobile sector,” the official said. In FY 2021/22, the government collected revenue of Rs 66.30bn from the imports of four and two-wheelers,  DoC data shows. The story is the same with the inland revenue collection. According to IRD,  the revenue collection as of mid-March of this fiscal year stood at 79.68 percent of the target. A total of Rs 281.99bn has been collected by IRD as of mid-March against the target of Rs 353.91bn. The department had raised Rs 284.88bn in revenue during the same period of the last fiscal year. In late January, the government decided to reduce administrative expenditure by 20 percent. Subsequently, the government trimmed its expenditure plan (budget) for the current fiscal year 2022/23 by 13.59 percent through the mid-term review of the budget. This translates to a reduction of a staggering Rs 243.83bn in the budget for FY 2022/23. The revised budget now amounts to Rs 1,549.99bn. On May 29,  former finance minister Janardan Sharma had presented a budget of Rs 1,793.83bn with an ambitious 8 percent economic growth target. But during the first quarter of the current fiscal year, the economy grew by just 0.8 percent. Industrialists and businesspersons say the demand for goods and services has slumped as the economy is facing several problems currently. According to revenue administration officials, meeting the revenue targets is difficult because of the macroeconomic headwinds.