Dev suffers as all-party mechanism fails

Bishnu Prasad Aryal
KATHMANDU: September 12

A row over all-party mechanism, that keep changing over and again, has manifestly obstructed the board meetings required to approve budget and breakdown of the development programmes for the local bodies.

“We are unable to carry out the regular development projects due to the dispute,” said Gopal Parajuli, local development officer at the Kathmandu District Development Committee.

“Every time there is a dispute over the local body, development projects suffer,” he added.

As per the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, it was agreed that an all-party mechanism comprising of seven political parties, would resolve all the disputes. However, Jeevan Sitaula, LDO of the Lalitpur District Development Committee, said this was not happening now.

“The cumulative effects of all this is that neither the budget could be approved nor any board meeting could take place,” Sitaula added.

The Ministry of Local Development has issued notices to the local bodies and the members representing political parties in the Constituent Assembly, but all in vain.
The annual budget was to be approved on or before mid-July, when the fiscal year begins. But the discussions on budget allocations and projects have yet to start, said Prabha Pandey, LDO of Bhaktapur.

“Last year’s programmes are completed, but the new ones are yet to be discussed and endorsed,” she added.

There is now a 10-party mechanism in place in Bhaktapur against the five-party mechanism decided upon earlier. Pandey said that the conflict has ensued between the old and new mechanisms, whereby the new mechanism has not been able to go forward.

The main contentious issue is centred around number of votes garnered by the parties during the CA elections. “They say that those parties which failed to secure 10 per cent of votes in CA election should not be included in the mechanism, “ she added.

With no mayor at helm, city planning in limbo

KATHMANDU: The City Planning Commission (CPC), a body responsible for streamlining the development of the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) has long been non-operational.

The commission which comprised a mayor, experts and managers to implement urban planning and other short- and long-term projects for the development of the city, has been inoperative since 2002, apparently following the end of the tenure of then local body representatives.

"The commission could become operational under the municipal officials and representatives from all parties, but nothing of that sort has happened yet," Naba Raj Dhakal, officer at the Revenue Division of the KMC.

KMC officials said that in the absence of the Mayor, the executive chief had taken over the responsibility to oversee the implementation of the programme in
coordination with the all-party mechanism.

Dhakal also said that the periodic and annual programmes of the metropolis could not be implemented since then.

Meanwhile, sources elsewhere said that the CPC was revived a few weeks ago but is only coming into nominal existence.
When asked, Deepak Koirala, assistant executive of the KMC, said he was unaware of the existence of the Commission. "I am recently transferred here and I am not briefed on CPC," he said.

Koirala informed that there was a temporary metropolis reformation programme to advice the KMC for good governance."I will study on the CPC and explain more about it," he added.

There are six departments and 16 divisions under the KMC, where a total of 2,300 staffs have been employed.

Yet another daunting problem before the parties to resolve is how to provide security to the government employees in the local bodies for the smooth implementation of those budget and the programmes.

Krishna Prasad Aryal, LDO of Sindhupalchowk, said that they have been facing several death threats on the new mechanism. “We feel highly insecure to perform our job due to the pressure from the political parties,” he said, adding, “ On the other hand, the dispute of all-party mechanism has left us paralysed to carry out development activities, resulting in a terrible loss of time,” he said.

Dinesh Kumar Thapaliya, spokesperson at the MoLD, said that the Maoists were announcing parallel government in the local bodies, which has worsened the situation.

Admitting government’s failure to provide security to the employees, State Minister for Local Development Ganesh Bahadur Khadka said that the Maoists were claiming four-five representatives in the mechanism against the CPA spirit and common consensus. “This has created difficult situation in the local level performance,” Khadka said.