Hungry, tired and broke, videos of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/long-road-home/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/long-road-home/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1587524951229000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEeGT-VovzTmmOPDIdCvET8-IxcSA">migrant workers walking for days</a> on end to go home from Kathmandu have fuelled public outrage against the government. And the buck has stopped at the office of Prime Minister K P Oli.This is just the latest in a series of missteps by the government that has eclipsed even some of the effective steps it has so far taken to contain the spread of the virus. Physically weak after his second kidney transplant, Oli also senses that his political rivals with his NCP are using these lapses to remove him from office. On Monday, Oli got the Cabinet to endorse a surprise ordinance allowing political parties to split if 40% of their parliamentary party voted for it. This appeared to be a move to counter his NCP rivals, and distract from the crisis at hand. But it has backfired with his detractors seizing on public criticism of an unconstitutional move at a time when the nation is going through a crisis. The government’s mishandling of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/walking-3-days-to-get-home/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/walking-3-days-to-get-home/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1587524951229000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEO9dvkoR-N-e83UML4lT4RNE2AbQ">daily wage-earners on the move</a>, the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-and-india-stop-nationals-in-each-others-countries/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-and-india-stop-nationals-in-each-others-countries/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1587524951229000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHecNBurEwfuhqnnXNrZwmh8GWj5Q">Nepali workers stranded in India</a>, and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/not-so-honorary-consul/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/not-so-honorary-consul/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1587524951229000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGYQEVxf_fj2apLFSe9N04eDF6hBA">allegations of corruption in medical procurement</a> have exposed political fissures at many levels. The Prime Minister’s Office has always been at loggerheads with the bureaucracy and the ministries, the High-Level Coordination Committee for the Prevention and Control of COVID-19 led by Defence Minister Ishwar Pokhrel has an ongoing turf battle with the Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa.  <figure><img width="1800" height="1169" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121116/636b8c3d9c7e80680e06b2e9jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Members of Nepal Communist Party in a meeting at the Prime Minister Oli's residence. PHOTO: RSS NEPAL</figcaption></figure>There is a tussle over jurisdiction between the central government in Kathmandu and the federal provinces that pre-dates the coronavirus crisis. Then there is the overarching power struggle between Oli and his NCP co-chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal that broadly reflects the growing gap between the former UML and ex-Maoist components of the party. The thousands forced to walk to distant districts <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-covid-19-lockdown-extended-till-7-april/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-covid-19-lockdown-extended-till-7-april/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1587524951229000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEnzK4xZp3WHA2FamcyIKYavu3CsA">after the lockdown was extended on 15 April</a> were just pawns in these great games. It typified the insensitivity of the government and its slowness in protecting citizens, and exposed politicians as being only interested in enriching themselves on procurement of medical equipment to fight the epidemic. Even the government’s efforts to address the dire situation of the people, especially women and children, walking along the highways has been mired in political infighting. The Minister of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Shivamaya Tungbahamphe raised the issue with Prime Minister Oli, who promptly convened a meeting of ministers and a Coronavirus Crisis Management team last week. Instructions were given to coordinate between local government bodies and police, to escort those on the move along the highways safely to their destinations. Criticism against the government’s inaction was building up even within the ruling party.“This lack of urgency eroded the people’s confidence in the government,” says political analyst Puranjan Acharya. “There was lack of foresight in planning, and negligence in addressing the needs of the most vulnerable sections of the population during the lockdown.” <figure><img width="3600" height="2400" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121116/636b8c419c7e80680e06b2eajpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>People gather to return homes in Bhaktapur. PHOTO: RSS NEPAL</figcaption></figure>Under fire for this perceived lack of urgency, Defence Minister Pokhrel got a meeting of the High-Level Committee on 11 April to put out a tentative strategy to transport people wishing to leave Kathmandu for their districts under the assumption that no cases had been detected in the capital. But the plan was never taken to the Cabinet, and there was disagreement within the committee between Defence Minister Pokhrel and Home Minister Thapa whether the plan was logistically feasible. Despite this, Pokhrel’s secretariat and the Prime Minister’s Office issued a notice via Facebook that Friday and Saturday had been designated for those wishing to leave Kathmandu, and that transport would be provided.However, the Chief Minister of Province 5 Shankar Pokhrel took to social media to express his reservations, and called the Prime Minister to say that the centre could not violate its own lockdown. Pokhrel then issued a perplexing notice on Facebook, denying that any such order had ever been issued. Passengers who had already been waiting for buses in Kathmandu Bus Park, were ordered back by police. This was not the only contentious decision made by the high command at the High-Level Committee however. Orders to not allow Nepali students studying abroad to return, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/lockdown-limbo-in-no-mans-land/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/lockdown-limbo-in-no-mans-land/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1587524951229000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGRn8eLF3O7sFjrrcAd1LqBPviFcg">stopping Nepali workers at the Indian border</a>, and the alleged corruption in the purchase of essential health equipment from private firms had already drawn considerable flak from the public in social media.Then on Sunday, the Prime Minister accused the media of being partisan and accused reporters of exaggerating the plight of those walking on the highways. The government’s inability to help those most affected by the lockdown, and the lack of accountability displayed during the crisis have fed public perception that the government is inhumane, and politically weakened Prime Minister Oli further and put him even more on the defensive. Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/long-road-home/">Long road home</a>, Bikram Rai and Suraj Kumar Bhujel<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/the-india-connection-in-nepals-covid-19-status/">The India connection in Nepal’s COVID-19 status</a>, Nepali Times

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Pressure mounts on PM Oli

<figure><img width="800" height="910" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121144/636a419d9c7e80680e04a685jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Illustration: DIWAKAR CHETTRI</figcaption></figure>Just when we thought everything necessary had been said about <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/trickledown-corruption,4176" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepal’s corrosive corruption</a>, it seems to be even worse. The idea that ‘corruption’ is a Rs100 note slipped under a table is now just a quaint notion. Today, a network of politicians, bureaucrats, the legislature, judiciary and private sector cartels plunder and loot from the people, dividing the spoils. The beauty of it: no one is caught.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=27016&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A klepto republic</a>, Editorial‘Corruption in Nepal is not a series of disjointed, individual acts. Instead, a range of stakeholders spanning public, private and criminal spheres operate as one to steal from the people and ensure impunity thrives,’ says a new report by the <a href="http://nitifoundation.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Niti Foundation</a>, Nepal’s Kleptocratic Network: Mapping Corruption and Impunity.  The network is one of shifting alliances spanning multiple agencies, with powerful businesses acting as brokers.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121144/636a41a09c7e80680e04a686jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="350" height="248">‘Money flows upwards through the hierarchy while impunity and benefits flow downward,’ adds the report. It uses flowcharts to show and shame politicians, political parties, public institutions and the private businesses. Read also:<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/trickledown-corruption,4176" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Trickledown corruption</a>, Editorial <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/uncategorized/elected-contractors/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Elected contractors</a><a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-has-to-curb-corruption-before-wooing-investors/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepal has to curb corruption before wooing investors</a>, Ramesh Kumar ‘The private sector has gained primacy as the driver of corruption and impunity in Nepal ... its main roles are to distort the functions and policies of government regulatory agencies and to hijack key revenue streams to facilitate money laundering and rentier practices,’ the report concludes.In cahoots are political ‘patrons’ of the network and parties creating a ‘culture of collusion’, and public institutions, which also ‘collude with private interests and politicians to steal directly from the state’.State institutions have been ‘weaponised’ and ‘hollowed out’.So, who remains to protect the interests of the Nepali people? If you were thinking ‘the judiciary’, think again.The report states starkly: ‘Through pressure and threats, including sackings, impeachments, and forced retirements, political parties control and extract loyalty from justices.’

No shame

<img width="1400" height="1049" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121144/636a41a19c7e80680e04a687jpeg.jpg" alt=""/>All of us witness examples of <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=17581#.XOS_jiAza70" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepal’s corruption pandemic</a> every day in every sphere of life: from slipping a few to get a driving license to setting land transactions. Roads that are dug up and not finished for years and bridges that collapse as soon as they are built are our monuments to malfeasance. Clever civil servants now deploy ‘brokers’ outside their offices to ‘facilitate’ state services that should be free, so they do not have to directly get hands dirty. Read also: <a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=27015&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">No shame</a>But these are cases of petty theft by small fry. At higher levels of government, corruption is so huge and widespread, so accepted as SOP, that the word ‘corruption’ does not do justice anymore to this <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/crony-communism/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">contagion</a> of loot and plunder.One egregious example of the rot was the ugly scene in the Parliamentary Accounts Committee (PAC) on Tuesday when Nepal Communist Party MP Aman Lal Modi accused <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/how-they-kept-nepal-in-the-dark-ages/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kul Man Ghising of the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA)</a> of corruption. Ghising, many readers will remember, is the man who ended the practice of his corrupt predecessors of providing 24-hour power to industries in return for bribes. Nepalis did not suffer from load-shedding just because of undersupply but because of structural corruption —  <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/corruption-in-electricity-industry-of-Nepal,3408" target="_blank" rel="noopener">top NEA executives were selling electricity to industrialists</a>, leaving household consumers in the dark for 10 years.<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/interview/interview-with-Kulman-Ghising,3409" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ghising</a> recently asked those industries to pay a backlog of dues for dedicated feeders, prompting Nepal’s so-called captains of industry to gang up on him. It does not take a Sherlock Holmes to figure out why MP Modi is using PAC to go after Ghising.Then there was the sordid affair of the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/from-the-nepali-press/melamchi-delayed-by-government-extortion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Melamchi contract</a>. The much-delayed $500 million project to bring water supply to Kathmandu Valley was nearing completion in December. A Dispute Resolution Board awarded the contractor Rs350 million for delays caused by the earthquake and Blockade in 2015, but a secretary in the Water Supply Ministry refused to sanction payment unless he got Rs50 million in kickbacks. The Italians abandoned the project, Melamchi is in limbo.To understand just how deep-rooted corruption in Nepal is today, a report issued this week by the <a href="http://nitifoundation.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Niti Foundation</a>, Nepal’s Kleptocratic Network: Mapping Corruption and Impunity, is an eye-opener. To be sure, none of what it contains should surprise us. We always knew rent-seeking was the modus operandi of the state, and politicians and bureaucrats were up to their necks in extraction and extortion. Such is the impunity, the big fish never get caught. <img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121144/636a41a49c7e80680e04a688jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="350" height="248">The report tries to show, not tell, just how nefarious, deep-rooted and interlocked rent-seeking is in Nepal. Illustrating graft with graphics, we are given flowcharts to explain why plunder and impunity is so systemic.‘Core state entities responsible for regulation and upholding rule of law have been weaponised or hollowed out by the kleptocratic network to extract resources and guarantee impunity,’ says the report. ‘The impunity network comprises those that declare law, enforce law and apply law.’The report lays bare how Parliament is infiltrated by special interest groups who are in key committees drafting legislation for sectors like education, health and infrastructure. There is no separation of powers anymore -- the powers-that-be control all three branches of government.The executive openly interferes in legislative functions, and tries to influence the courts with ‘bench shopping’. Those who stand in the way or try to expose the rot, like Kul Man Ghising, are themselves accused of corruption. The state is in open collusion with the private sector, which is now well represented in Parliament. The CIAA corruption watchdog is a lapdog of the state. Lack of transparency and impunity is rife in the security forces. The report has gory details of how ‘<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-has-to-curb-corruption-before-wooing-investors/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">revenue capture’</a> works through collusion between officials in <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/trickledown-corruption,4176" target="_blank" rel="noopener">all three levels of government</a> and contractors.The only remaining check and balance function is carried out by the fourth estate, hence the moves to try to censor its content through legislation. But even the media is used by powerful interest groups to target rivals or tar those who expose them.Everyone seems to be on the take: it is a public-private partnership to loot the country. ‘The private sector has gained primacy as the driver of corruption and impunity in Nepal … by distorting the functions and policies of government regulatory agencies and to hijack key revenue streams to facilitate money laundering and rentier practices.’  The Niti Foundation report makes for thoroughly depressing reading, and what it lacks is a roadmap out of this morass. Our only hope is in a transparent and fair electoral process that will one day punish thieves and reward the honest by electing them to office. <img width="1282" height="919" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121144/636a41a59c7e80680e04a689jpeg.jpg" alt=""><h2>10 years ago this week</h2> The Nepali Times <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/issue/452" target="_blank" rel="noopener">edition #452 of 22-28 May 2009</a> was filled with analysis of the politics post-resignation of Pushpa Kamal Dahal over the Army Chief sacking. The Ass had his own take on the matter, and except for GPK, the cast of characters are the same in this excerpt from the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=15961#.XOaeC1IzaUk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Backside Column ten years ago</a>:‘Rate we are going, the new federal constitution of Nepal is looking more and more like a mirage. The closer we get to it, the more it recedes. The prolonged coalition-cobbling is reminiscent of mid-1990s. And it’s the same old faces.BijayG being pulled by both arms to switch sides when Upadro refused to toe the line. The only difference with 15 years ago is that this time the entire exercise is outsourced to Lainchaur. And the sight of both GPK and PKD courting Kamal Thapa for royalist support just shows how quickly fortunes turn in politics.And even the bigger parties are out to feather their nests. One senior NC leader, when asked by the Ass if he would be joining the Makunay-led govt, said: “You think I’m stupid to join a sarkar that will last three months? I will join the one formed after this.” <img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121144/636a41a89c7e80680e04a68ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="1270">

A KLEPTO REPUBLIC

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Pressure mounts on PM Oli

No shame

A KLEPTO REPUBLIC