MCC in Nepali politics

The government has already spent billions of rupees under the MCC-Nepal Compact with the belief that the fund spent by the government for the last two years will be reimbursed by the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a controversial American grant project. There is the provision of rectifying the MCC from the parliament. Two years ago, when the government registered the file in Parliament, the then speaker Krishna Bahadur Mahara kept the file pending. Later, Mahara was dismissed from the speaker’s post on the charge of sexual violation on one of the staffers in the Parliamentarian Secretariat. The main reason behind Mahara’s dismissal was the MCC, it is said.

Now, under the instruction of Pushpakamal Dahal Prachanda, speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota has kept the MCC file pending. When Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli publicly complaint that speaker Sapkota performed non-cooperation in endorsement of MCC, replying to Oli, Sapkota said that some elements have tried to encircle him to act against the nation’s interests.

Are Prachanda and Sapkota nationalist? Just recently, Prachanda had remarked that he has planned to constitute an India comfortable government.

So far, Prachanda and Sapkota are trying to bargain with the Americans for the removal from the charges of severe violation of human rights on them. Sapkota is facing a murder charge. The case is under the consideration of the Supreme Court. Similarly, Prachanda and many others are facing the charge of violation of human rights and disappearance of people during the insurgency period. They want to get rid of such charges. That’s why they have made MCC the bargaining tool.

In fact, if Americans will give special consideration to the human rights violation charges, Prachanda will accept MCC without any delay.

Sher Bahadur Deuba and K.P. Sharma Oli are already in favour of MCC. They are even ready to endorse the project without any amendment. So far, a large section of Nepali intellectuals believes that MCC is an IndoWestern design to bring Nepal under American colonial rule.

More serious is that once the parliament will rectify the project, MCC will be empowered with the right of disobeying the Nepali constitution and existing laws. In conclusion, once MCC is endorsed, Nepal’s sovereignty will be questioned.