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Pot calling the kettle black
JUN 23 -
Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal held a meeting of senior civil servants to exhort them to show more dedicated action at least in the projects that he has set as his priority. But lo and behold, he held this very important meeting at the fag end of his prime ministerial stint. For all practical purposes, he as prime minister has been rendered the proverbial “sacrificial goat” with all purification rituals completed in the lead up to his “offering” to the deity. As soon as there is consensus among the UCPN (Maoist), the NC and the UML, the first thing that will happen is that he will be vacating his seat. Even otherwise, as soon as there is agreement between the UML and the NC for a change of the guard with or without the Maoists, he has to go too. Therefore, for all practical purposes, he is a lame duck premier; and as rightly suggested by the UML supremo, heads a caretaker government. One wonders what message he intends to give by holding the meeting at “the eleventh hour”.
Furthermore, given his hopeless helplessness in taking any action against his wayward cabinet colleagues—the agriculture state minister slapping a CDO and the labour minister manhandling the foreign secretary leading to a further plunge in the morale of the civil service—M.K. Nepal as prime minister retains very little moral authority to tell government officials what to do. While such meetings bring media coverage for the premier, a feat that he enjoys endlessly, they have amounted to an utter waste of time. Although it was known to the nation quite early on as to what alloy MKN is made of as the country’s leader, what surprises more is that his advisors—Raghujee Pant for one who likes to project himself as a clear thinking, straight speaking clean politician—seem to have little influence on how the PM behaves; but they keep their umbilical cords attached to him to ensure that the perks of power, the goodies, continue to line their pockets despite their failure to contribute to good governance in the country.
In the PM’s meeting with the secretaries, all of them complained about ministers “meddling” in even the most mundane of bureaucratic affairs and suggested that there should be a “code of conduct” for the ministers, as if they would, for once, be sufficiently conscientious to abide by such norms. The civil servants (and the PM) need only to remember that about a year ago, the health minister Choudhary went on a foreign junket to Germany on a seat, reportedly earmarked for an under secretary, without even bothering to inform the PM; and there was nothing done about it.
So, where does that leave the civil servants, particularly the secretaries, some of whom, as reported in the media, had made down payments of huge sums of money to the ministers concerned to get posted to plum ministries where they could reap even larger sums than the amount used for bribing them.
Such corrupt officials apart, the civil servants in general have to recall that there has never been a time when politicians were not corrupt in Nepal. During the three-decade-long Panchayat regime, most prime ministers and ministers were no different. The fact of the matter is that given the kind of democracy we have, i.e., aspiring politicians having to buy votes from the people who are mostly poor and illiterate, the politicians have to make money while in power, resulting in the equation that a successful politician in Nepal is necessarily a corrupt man (or woman).
But even with such people at the helm, at least a few things have happened in Nepal, all because of the professionalism of the officials concerned. For instance, in spite of the terrible situation the country is in at present to the extent of being looked down upon by the rest of the world—continuing and massive poverty, donors being able to do whatever they wish, unresolved Maoist insurgency, most youths leaving the country to do “3-D” work all over the world including submitting to sexual abuse, continuing lack of political accountability, politicians and officials corrupt to the bone and so on—Nepal is still considered to be the “Mecca and Medina” when it comes to community forests or meeting the MDG in child survival.
Even as the corrupt ministers were reigning during the Panchayat days, an under secretary, based on his ethnographic findings in a Jumla village, legally introduced the now ubiquitous institution of user groups to our local development methodology in 1982. A joint secretary took it further and innovated the concept of forest user groups that went on to revive Nepal’s forests from the near desertification state of the 1980s. An additional secretary introduced mothers’ groups and female community health volunteers to our health management structure at the local level in 1988 who now number 48,000 in the country, and have been the principal factor in helping Nepal achieve the distinction of being the only country in the world projected to achieve the MDG on child survival ahead of 2015.
Every senior official in particular must have a sense of legacy after being on the government payroll for so many years. When they retire, they must be able to look back at their achievements with a sense of pride, dignity and satisfaction. Most retired civil servants have little to show for their long tenure in the government, even as they do not feel embarrassed to whine about what things are wrong with the government and the country at present. Therefore, it would be downright irresponsible for the civil servants, particularly those at senior levels, to put all the blame on the politicians at the helm and do nothing about delivering service to the people. Each one of them must have one or more professional goals of their own, and must devise and implement strategies to achieve them, despite their wayward ministers. For all practical purposes, they are the permanent professional government in the country, and must represent the fallback position for the people.
Additionally, it is incumbent upon the Ministry of General Administration to reform the civil service rules so that senior officials work under a compulsion to deliver professionally on their jobs. This would also give a very useful leverage to them to rightfully challenge the ministers when their instructions go against the interests of the country as well as their own chances for professional advancement and prospects for upward mobility in their career ladder. So, by not having the right kind of civil service rules, it is the Ministry of General Administration that is acting as the villain.
(The author is an anthropologist and has served in the National Planning Commission)
Posted on: 2010-06-24 08:24
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