Higher corruption in high places

I have just finished reading the recently published Cuckooland: Where the Rich Own the Truth, by Tom Burgis that was recently reviewed in this paper, and examines the phenomenon of corruption across several continents, and the career of powerbroker Mohamed Amersi.

In the Nepal section, the focus is on Amersi’s links with prominent Nepali ‘businessman’ Ajeya Sumargi, the activities of the Nordic telecommunications giant TeliaSonera and its Nepali network Ncell, and Amersi’s relationship first with the royal family and after 2006, with certain prominent politicians, including the Maoist leader formerly known as ‘Prachanda’.

It is well recognised in Nepal that corruption in high places is one of the major features of Nepal’s political economy. In February, while I was visiting Kathmandu for the first time in five years, there was an editorial in The Kathmandu Post headed ‘Rotting from the Head’ which suggested that ‘frustration with corruption, mismanagement and bad governance is reaching a boiling point’.

The latest Transparency International report showed that the corruption perception index (CPI) for Nepal was 34 out of 100, marginally lower than the previous year. In the review period, Prachanda (the CPN Maoist Centre chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal) was prime minister until mid-July 2024 when he was replaced in the merry-go-round of Nepali politics, by UML chief K P Oli, the current prime minister.

Several decisions of the Oli-led government, including one to build his party’s central office with funds from Min Bahadur Gurung of Bhatbhateni and the Giribandhu Tea Estate scam related to the illegal use of land exceeding the prescribed ceiling, were just the latest corruption cases linked to the prime minister.

Pushpa Kamal Dahal claimed that the two other major parties, the Nepali Congress (NC) and the UML had plotted his removal because of his ‘campaign against corruption’, but he himself was compromised by colleagues like Krishna Bahadur Mahara, who was implicated in a gold smuggling case and, arguably, by his own dealings with Ajeya Sumargi and TeliaSonera, that are discussed by Tom Burgis in Cuckooland.

The Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) emerged dramatically as the fourth largest party in the House of Representatives in 2022 on a platform of corruption control and good governance. But its president, Rabi Lamichhane, had been suspended as a lawmaker and faces charges of embezzlement of the deposits of cooperatives in five districts.

Other politicians also, including former NC home minister Balkrishna Khand, who was only released on bail after detention on the charge of sending Nepalis as fake refugees from Bhutan to the United States, and former prime ministers Baburam Bhattarai and Madhav Kumar Nepal (now leaders of their own small parties) were considered not to be ‘above question’ with regard to illegal sales of government land at Lalita Niwas.

On 20 March 2025, the East Asia Forum published a piece by Anil Sigdel, founder of Nepal Matters in Washington DC, lecturer at the University of Vienna and author of India in the Era of China’s Belt and Road Initiative: How Modi Responds to Xi. He looked back on the previous year and suggested that corruption and crisis defined Nepal’s 2024.

In addition to the dire state of the economy, stagnant agricultural production, the virtual absence of industry, massive trade deficit especially with India and crippling reliance on remittances from Nepalis living and working abroad, Sigdel highlights the sclerosis, the pervasive corruption and the rent-seeking of the political elite, and the phenomenon of what might be termed ‘the abuse of public trust for private gain’ -- a definition of corruption provided by Tom Burgis.

Now, Nepal has introduced a fresh provision in its newly-amended anti-corruption law that will penalise public officials not only for the abuse of power but also for their inaction or indecision. The amended Anti-Corruption Act 2002, which took five years to pass through the federal parliament, has now come into effect following presidential approval. Offenders could face up to six months detention or a fine of up to Rs50,000, or both.

The Act also imposes up to a year’s imprisonment or a fine of Rs500,000, or both, for officials found guilty of abusing their official position or duties. But this amendment is directed essentially at civil servants, and does little to deal with those in high places, politicians and businesses, who continue all too often to abuse public trust for private gain.

Is it too much to hope that continued pressure from the public and scrutiny by the media will not only bring to light corruption where it exists but gradually reduce its incidence?

David Seddon is Director of Critical Faculty, author and co-author of many publications on Nepal, including Nepal in Crisis (with John Cameron and P M Blaikie) first published in 1980.