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Final farewell: A relative tosses a garland at the body of his loved one who died from Covid-19 as health workers look on, outside the gates of the electric crematory at Pashupatinath, Kathmandu, on May 2. As of May 5, almost 3,500 people had lost their lives to the contagion in Nepal | Pratik Rayamajhi

Doctors and nurses nodding off on their feet from sheer exhaustion. Police personnel, half-asleep, running to enforce restrictions at the crack of dawn. Sanitary workers going door to door to college garbage. Bank workers facilitating the payment of our medical and food bills. Journalists reporting from hospitals and health centers around the country. They and countless others who are doing their duties in these difficult times, often at great risk to their lives, are our heroes. 

Yet even among them, the work of medical and police personnel are tricky. Doctors and nurses cannot work from home nor do they have the option of reducing their contact points. Given their shortage in Nepal, many are working 12- to 16-hour days, testing, tending to the ill, responding to emergencies. The police personnel deployed to enforce the Covid-19 restrictive measures are as overworked, reporting to duty at 4.45 am every day and working non-stop for the next 16-18 hours. In return, instead of a sincere ‘thank you’, those defying prohibitory orders often bombard them with abuses. 

ApEx would like to thank each one of the frontline workers who are involved in saving lives or in facilitating, each in their own way, our daily, cooped-up existence. Our lives would be so much more difficult without you. Heck, we might not even be alive. 

Birth: 17 December 1929, Bhaktapur
Death: 17 April 2021, Thapathali

Trade and commerce have never been easy for Nepal, a landlocked country. Nepal these days imports and exports commodities from different parts of the world. But during the 1950s, it was solely dependent on India.

When Ram Bhakta Saakha, a reputable businessman from Nepal, decided to travel to Bombay to sign a new business deal, accompanying him was his 18-year-old son Ganesh Bhakta, who had already been assisting him in business.

In Bombay, the junior Saakha was surprised when his father told him to stay in the city and study. The arrangement had not been discussed earlier but Ganesh Bhakta  couldn’t say no to his father. He lived in India for five years and returned home after completing his diploma in commerce.

Ganesh Bhakta came home with a lot of energy and the desire to do expand his family business. He first assisted his father, but gradually worked on expanding the business. In 1974, he established his first factory, Unisha Polychem, in Bhaktapur. It was followed by Nepal Paints and Saakha Steels, both of which these days belong to the Saakha Group.

In 1997, Saakha was nominated member of a government research team on the implementation of the VAT system in Nepal. But the same issue of VAT would compel his company to pay almost Rs. 7.3 million in fines to the government in 2012. After the commencement of the VAT system, all sales tax was merged with VAT. But the group accountants had not been complying with new norms.

From his early days, Saakha was interested in politics. He contested the election for the post of ward chairperson in the 1957 municipal elections. Despite not winning, he became an active member of the Bhaktapur District Committee of the Nepali Congress and also served as district treasurer.

Saakha played a key role in establishing the Bhaktapur branch of FNCCI. He continued to be involved in his family business in his old age, before passing away at 91, without any major health complications.

He is survived by four sons—Kiran Prakash, Tej Prakash, Biswo Prakash, and Jyoti Prakash; and three daughters—Usha Kiran, Kalpana Kiran, and Komal Kiran.

“In nine months (of the current fiscal year) the 27 commercial banks of Nepal made a net profit of Rs 50.74 billion… Let these banks help establish isolation centers—1,000 bed each,” tweeted journalist Subina Shrestha on April 29. (The Nepali bits in this tweet and the tweets discussed below have been translated into English.)

The respondents to Shrestha’s tweet were mostly pessimistic. “I don't think they are rich enough for this type of greater good for larger public,” replied Roshan Regmi. “Is the banks’ social responsibility limited to making money?” asked Sita Mademba. “Seems you misunderstood it,” Ajay Das chimed in. “Nepali banks do nothing except make profits. The social responsibility of their operators is limited to establishing prizes in the names of their mothers and fathers.”

Indeed, even amid a raging pandemic, it was a bumper year for most Nepali commercial banks. Compared to the same period last fiscal, the 27 banks’ net profits increased by Rs 6.07 billion, a 13.5 percent increase.

Take the case of Nepal’s biggest commercial bank by paid-up capital, Global IME Bank. It made a net profit of Rs 3.59 billion in the first nine months of the current fiscal. Interestingly, even during the pandemic, the bank increased its net profit by a whopping 32.40 percent. Yet the bank has done precious little to help the country combat Covid-19. (Our repeated attempts to contact bank authorities for comments were unsuccessful.)

Global IME’s Chairperson Chandra Prakash Dhakal is a shadowy figure. In its 2019 report, the Center for Investigative Journalism, Nepal (CIJ Nepal) named Dhakal among 55 Nepali nationals with illegal properties abroad.  “Chandra Prasad Dhakal is found to have purchased the Sunbird Computer Consultants Limited on August 9, 2002,” says the report. “According to the documents received by the CIJ Nepal… he had rechristened the company as International Money Express (IME) UK Limited.”

Rather than invest in their country or help it overcome a crippling pandemic, top bankers like Dhakal are busy stashing their wealth abroad and cheating Nepali tax authorities.

This is not to single out the IME group and Dhakal. In the first nine months of the current fiscal, only one bank has made more profit than Global IME: Nabil Bank. Compared to its sheer heft, its contribution to the country’s anti-corona efforts has been puny. Incidentally, the same CIJ Nepal reports implicates the family behind the Chaudhary Group—who are also Nabil’s operators—in building wealth abroad.

“Every Nepali citizen and organization is constitutionally obliged to help the country in times of crisis as per their capacity. It’s also a moral duty,” says Uma Shankar Prasad, associate professor of economics at Tribhuvan University. Rather than our own organizations, he rues, outside agencies are doing more to help combat Covid-19 in Nepal. “There can be no question that the banks that have made so much money in this country should help it during a crisis like this.”

Even in India, adds Prasad, you have SBI as well as other commercial banks investing a lot in the betterment of their society. Nepali banks also spend on social causes but on a much smaller scale compared to their size.

“Why can’t Nepal’s profitable banks build isolation or quarantine centers? How about a subsidized hotel where the Covid-19 can be kept and treated?” Prasad asks.

A few days ago, a 38-year-old woman from Galyang died on the way to Pokhara where she was being rushed for treatment. The woman, who was infected with corona virus, died due to lack of oxygen.

Similarly, three others have died due to Covid-19 in Syangja so far since the beginning of the Nepali new year. As the second wave of corona virus infections is on the rise in the country, many hospitals are facing shortages of ventilators. However, the four ventilators available at Syangja Hospital are kept in the storeroom.

Medical Superintendent of the hospital Dr Ramesh Acharya said the ventilator had to be kept in the store as they were useless without skilled human resources to operate them. He said, “Anesthesiologists and trained nurses are needed to operate the ventilator.”

"As the condition of patients who need ventilator support is always critical, the work of a technician operating a ventilator is extremely sensitive," he said.

Chief District Officer Deepak Raj Nepal informed that the District Crisis Management Committee has decided to set up a 10-bed isolation ward in the hospital. The hospital administration stated that an isolation room is being prepared at the hospital accordingly.

The Gandaki state government provided the ventilators to the district hospital located in Putlibazar Municipality-3. An isolation center was also set up at the hospital during the first wave of corona infections.

The number of coronavirus infections in Syangja is increasing day by day. As of Tuesday, the number of infected people has exceeded 216. Of those infected, 186 are being treated at home, 25 in various health facilities and five in quarantine centers.

Bishnu Prasad Subedi, chief of the health office in Syangja, said none of the 10 hospitals in the district has ICU and ventilator facilities despite having a capacity of 210 beds.

Nepal is on the cusp of a Covid-19 catastrophe. As of this writing, daily reported new infections have climbed to 7,500, with nearly 3,500 total deaths. The actual numbers, on both counts, could be much higher. This is the time for every conscionable Nepali citizen and organization to help the country tackle the deadly virus and prevent unnecessary loss of lives and livelihoods. The private sector, in this regard, has failed its duty. A part of it may also have been involved in a criminal act of disrupting vital vaccination supplies. 

Asked about the delay in import of Indian vaccines, Health Minister Hridesh Tripathi had replied some time ago that at least a million more doses of the Covishield would already have been imported if not for some meddlesome ‘middlemen’. These people were using their clout, both in India and Nepal, to disrupt supplies. They wanted to import the vaccines at a 10 percent mark-up, an offer the ministry declined. So, a bunch of selfish businessmen has been denying life-saving vaccines to hundreds of thousands of Nepalis. 

If so, these unconscionable middlemen who wanted to profit from the misery of their brethren must be brought to book and barred from all future government-related contracts. A dangerous precedent could be set if no action is taken against such blatant disregard of people’s health and wellbeing. That said, Minister Tripathi’s admission also suggested the weakness, if not collusion, of our state mechanisms. The reality is that the federal government has failed in Covid management right from the start of the contagion in Nepal back in March 2020. 

Prime Minister KP Oli must clear the bottlenecks in the import of vaccines and save further embarrassment to his government. It is upon him to back his thoughtful speech to the country on April 29 on corona-control with urgent action. On the line is not just his political legacy, but also the lives of millions of Nepalis.  

Still-Moving: A man on a bicycle and some cattle are silhouetted with the setting sun in the background at Itahari, Province 1 | Photo: Pratik Rayamajhi