Kuwait Times

‘Game of Thrones’ leaves Nepal victims in the cold

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HOKSHE, Nepal:

Farmer Ganesh Prasad Gautam beamed as the young woman behind the desk littered with files called his name out at the rundown government office in the mountains of central Nepal. After 18 months of living in a shack made of corrugated iron, tarpaulin and bamboo amid the ruins of his earthquake-hit house, he is finally receiving longpromis­ed government funds to start rebuilding his home.

The 54-year-old farmer was one of eight million people affected in April last year when a 7.8-magnitude quake struck the Himalayan nation - leaving 9,000 dead and destroying one million homes as well as schools, businesses roads, and bridges. “The money is late and it’s not enough to build what I had before, but at least the government has given it,” Gautam said to nods from fellow villagers gathered at the office in Hokshe village, 64 km east of Kathmandu. “We’ve already endured one winter and two monsoons like this - out in the open with no protection from the rain and cold.”

But Gautam is one of the lucky ones. Constant feuding between a myriad of political parties has fuelled political turmoil and weak governance in Nepal, delaying efforts to rebuild the country of 28 million people despite an outpouring of aid, analysts said. Ongoing political instabilit­y in a country which has seen 24 government­s in 26 years has stymied reconstruc­tion efforts. “You are looking at a country that has had three government­s since the earthquake - all coalitions and none with a solid majority,” said Renaud Meyer, Country Director for the United Nations Developmen­t Programme (UNDP) in Nepal. “There is no doubt the political landscape is the biggest barrier for the recovery and reconstruc­tion of Nepal to take place. It requires consistenc­y, it requires determinat­ion and the less open it is to spoilers, the better.”

Politics Prevails

Wedged between India and China, Nepal - famed as the birthplace of Buddha and home to Mount Everest - is one of the world’s poorest countries. A decade-long civil war between Maoist rebels and government forces ended in 2006, raising hopes of developmen­t in a country where one in four people live on less than $1.90 a day - the World Bank’s measure of extreme poverty. The three main parties - the Nepali Congress (NC), Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist-Centre) and the Unified Marxist Leninist (UML) - have over the years made unlikely bedfellows in fragile coalitions and politician­s are seen as selfish and power hungry.

Critics say rather than focus on reconstruc­tion, former Prime Minister Sushil Koirala’s NC-led government exploited a wave of national solidarity in the quake’s aftermath to finalise Nepal’s long overdue constituti­on. Even though a new charter was adopted in Sept 2015, and a new coalition government led by Khadga Prasad Oli’s UML party took power, the historic moment was marred by bloodshed in street clashes in the southern Terai region bordering India.

More than 50 people died in the crisis, which forced Oli to resign nine months after taking power as his main coalition partner, the Maoist Centre party, withdrew its support. The constituti­onal crisis and political changes resulted a six-month delay in setting up the National Reconstruc­tion Authority (NRA) - the key agency overseeing Nepal’s recovery. As a result, families are only now receiving the first installmen­t of a promised 200,000 rupee ($1,880) housing grant. But for some Nepalis, the funds are too little, too late. Down the road from the five-star Hyatt Regency hotel in Chuchepati on the outskirts of Kathmandu, amid the hundreds of blue and white plastic tents which make up a displaceme­nt camp, housewife Shanti Pariyar, 42, complains of sleepless nights. Little food, daily treks to queue for two jerry cans of clean water, few toilets, no privacy to bathe and monsoon rains which flood her tarpaulin tent are bad enough, she said. But what keeps her up at night is the 300,000rupee ($2,815) debt she has racked up since her village home was destroyed, forcing her family to move to the capital in search of work. — Reuters

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