Thieves and looters everywhere

Rashtriya Prajatantra Party chairman Rajendra Lingden had once claimed that all the political leaders are being treated as thieves by the commoners. Lingden’s remarks had become viral in the Nepali political arena. Lingden became a figure of public attraction when he opined that taking bribes or being involved in corruption and commission would be an act of drinking own mother’s blood. Indeed, corruption and daylight loot has become an unavoidable feature of the present political structure. The two reports that appeared in broadsheet dailies this week have drawn the attention of many Nepali readers. The other day, a sitting secretary of the government alleged that the Singhadurwar has become the center for corruption practices. The Rajdhani daily, quoting a sitting secretary, which is the highest position in the bureaucracy below the chief secretary, has stated that all the ministries have become the centre of corruption deals. There is no command of the prime minister and ministers as they all are involved in the corruption dealing. It is an open secret that just to move a file from one table to another table, there will be the commission deal, the secretary said. There will be a big deal of commission during the transfer and promotion of the civil servicemen, the secretary disclosed this open secret. More than this revelation by a sitting secretary, the cover story produced by Annapurna Post daily claims that how a former non-gazetted officer entered the finance minister's chamber at midnight and changed the customs duties on different items being imported by Nepal! Senior officials working for the budget in the ministry left the minister's chamber when the minister introduced the individual as his representative who was eligible to make changes to the budget being presented the same afternoon. The finance minister is facing the charge of making changes on the customs duties in the interests of some business groups. such a serious report is a subject to be investigated by the anti-corruption bodies and also international financial institutions including the INGOs working for good governance and against corruption should put pressure on the government for conducting an independent investigation on the issue. According to yet another report, under the influence of Prime Minister’s son Prithivi Bahadur Deuba, the import duty on the sanitary pad has been reduced from which the local sanitary pad industries giving employment to around six thousand people have fallen into crisis. The Commission for Investigation on Abuse of Authority, National Vigilance Center, and other corruption-curbing authorities are unable to look after the flourishing corruption in Singhadurwar. Every time, we have been writing on corruption issues, which have become a serious disease in Nepali politics. When the political leaders and senior government officials come to disclose such rampant corruption taking place in the government organs and the political leaders, authorities constituted to curb corruption and punish those culprits have become silent spectators of all these perversions, it won't be odd to say the present system which the “revolutionary” leaders say “loktantra” is, in fact, a “loot-tantra”. The revelations by the sitting government secretary and earlier allegations of RPP chair Lingden are the facts that all the government officials and political leaders are in a race to loot the nation and the people. Maybe some are honest politicians and bureaucrats, but in general, all are practising loot. Now, perhaps, it has become clear to all that why this loktantra was introduced in the country!