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Every year, thousands of Nepalis fly to foreign countries in search of jobs. Around 90 percent of them end up in Persian Gulf countries. Ideally, a foreign job aspirant is only supposed to pay only for medical, insurance, and pre-departure orientation training, which amounts to around Rs 8,000. But overseas job recruitment agencies, commonly referred to as manpower agencies in Nepal, have been charging an average of Rs 100,000 from each person. They are openly going against the ‘free visa, free ticket’ policy introduced by the government in 2015. Anushka Nepal of ApEx talks to Umakanta Acharya, director general, Department of Foreign Employment on the matter.  Why aren’t job recruitment agencies following the ‘free visa, free ticket’ policy?  When the policy was made public, many agencies showed their dissatisfaction. There were concerns that they might go out of the business. They didn’t like the fact that the government did not consult them before announcing the policy. One reason could be that dissatisfaction. Also, there is an unhealthy competition among manpower agencies on who gets more demand for workers. They are even paying the employers to bump up the worker demand numbers. Some of them are doing this in order not to run out of business, while others are doing it out of greed. As a result, none of the agencies are willing to follow the rules.  The department should receive many complaints regarding this matter. So, What is the department doing?  Yes, we do get several complaints in this matter. But in most cases, there is not enough proof to support the workers’ claims. Manpower agencies do charge exorbitant fees from their clients, but they issue payment receipts for just Rs 10,000. So, without the document of proof to produce it in the court, we cannot pursue the case. The best we could do is to claim for the money people have paid to manpower agencies, and fine those companies if we have some kind of incriminating evidence. There is no legal provision to shut down the agencies, so they go on with their work even if the department has fined them.  Has the department worked on investigating these issues? If so, why has there not been any significant change in favor of the migrant workers?  We do launch investigations into the complaints we get from aspirant migrant workers. The goal of our investigation is to gather enough proof so that the matter could be taken to the court of law. But, like I said before, we rarely find substantial proof of wrongdoing to pursue the case legally. Secondly, a person will drop the case once the recruitment company promises to return their money. This takes away the reason for our investigation. So we haven’t been able to pursue a case thoroughly. There are aspects of money laundering, human rights violation, and also the breach of policy that needs to be looked into, but all of them do not fall under the jurisdiction of the department. One way this could work is if all the associated departments at the ministry were to collaborate while investigating complaints. It is said that manpower agencies enjoy political patronage that stops them from being held accountable. Is this true?  Yes, it is true. Many successful agency owners have a direct or indirect involvement with politics. In Nepal, we all have witnessed how political influence can help an individual get out of a situation no matter how bad. The same goes for manpower agencies. Even when the department is willing to take action, political parties and their leaders protect manpower agencies and their owners. This has given them the confidence to violate regulations and take part in unlawful activities, because they know the authorities cannot touch them. It is a dangerous power they hold, which affects migrant workers the most.  A former labor minister himself owned a manpower agency. Did it not show a conflict of interest?  Obviously, it shows a conflict of interest. The government should not have appointed him in the first place. I cannot say for certain that he had a direct influence in the policy regarding migrant workers and job recruitment agencies. But what I can tell you is that there are many ways, not visible to the public, through which he could have misused the power to help his business interests. He was the minister before I joined the department, but I have heard some of my colleagues say that they felt unsafe during his tenure, that they were hesitant to open an investigation into the malpractices and irregularities reported in foreign job recruitment agencies. When people from the department themselves are scared of doing their jobs, you can imagine which side the minister leaned heavily on.

Engineers Vlogs is set to organize ‘Orbit Engineering Expo’ on Dec 9 and 10.The two-day expo will showcase projects in various fields of engineering, information technology and science. The event will have over 80 stalls and the teams interested in connecting with the exhibition can register their participation through the Khalti app. Himanshi Karna of ApEx talks to Ashutosh Karn, founder and chairman of the Engineers Vlogs.  What do the Engineers Vlogs do and how was it formed? I passed my engineering in 2019 but the covid lockdown halted my personal plans. As I had enough time to make efforts for something new, I made up a team to form a startup, instead of waiting to apply for a job. We decided to conduct a quiz competition, poetry competition, engineering photography competition, and talk shows during the lockdown.  We upload notices that concern the engineering students from all the universities in Nepal. We have been looking after student’s issues ever since we started. All of it happened to be successful and we hit 10,000 followers on Facebook during the lockdown itself.  What is the Orbit Engineering Expo and how did the idea come? We started off with the idea of bringing engineering out of the textbook. When we say this we mean that there is a lack of practical knowledge for our field and this expo is aimed at addressing this issue. I had a thought regarding an expo during the lockdown. Usually clubs from different colleges or political parties conduct such events. Yet, my team worked to make it happen on our own initiative, and the engineering colleges across our country have responded positively. The IIT Bombay is also collaborating with us. Who will participate in this expo and what could the visitors expect? Usually, if a team of civil engineers were to organize such an expo, other faculties of engineering students would not be allowed to participate. If it were colleges, then students from colleges affiliated to other universities could not participate in it, thus creating a line among the students from different universities. With this expo, we want all students and interested individuals to come together and share their knowledge and experience about their fields. We didn’t want to organize this expo targeting just the Kathmandu valley. We want students from all over Nepal to participate. We expect visitors to meet and interact with engineers from all over Nepal and get excited about the great diversity of engineering projects in this event. What will be the major attractions in the expo? The major attractions are the Robot Wars and Robot Soccer. We will also be providing a project demonstration competition with Rs 10,000 prize money for the winner. For the visitors using the ride-hailing app, Pathao, we are offering a 30 percent discount coupon. To add more, there will be free SIM cards, conversion of 2G or 3G SIM cards into 4G or E-sim cards for the ones whose mobiles work on E-SIM.  Why did you choose the Advanced College of Engineering as the venue? We approached 10-15 colleges to stage the expo. We needed a bigger area and for a limited budget. Only the Advanced College of Engineering could fulfill our requirements.  Are these kinds of expo common in Nepal and what uniqueness would you provide? Yes, such expos are common in Nepal. But, as I said earlier, the participants in our expo can be from any field and any college or university. They don’t even have to be engineering students. And, we are also not just focusing on academics. The whole event is designed to make a better place for engineers and engineering students. 

Clint Folsom is the mayor of the Town of Superior in Colorado State of the United States. He was elected in November 2014 and re-elected in November 2018. In addition to serving as mayor, Clint is also the managing broker and owner of Folsom & Company Real Estate. He was recently in Nepal when Pratik Ghimire of ApEx caught up with him to talk about his time here.

What was your motive to visit Nepal?

I was especially here to visit Khadbari Municipality of Sankhuwasabha district as the Town of Superior and Khadbari had agreed to a sister-city relationship last year. With this, we will exchange many cultural and developmental activities between these cities. My town also hosted the delegation of Khadbari recently and hence I and my team are here.  

What did you learn from the visit?

We learned so much, from how the people live, what they do for a living and how to host the guests. They welcomed us beautifully with tika and flower garlands. I have never seen such a warm welcoming ritual. In the US, we don’t do that, as it is not part of our culture. I guess we too have to celebrate our visitors a little bit more in America. 

Could we see more of such sister-city collaborations?

Yes, there are possibilities. The other cities in America could enter into such agreements. As long as there are people in each community to form such an alliance, it could easily happen as a sister-city relationship is a relation between people to people, residence to residence, and the government to government. 

What difference do you see between the local governments of Nepal and America?

The most interesting difference was the mayor and the deputy here have their offices, assistants, drivers, and other facilities. It is a full-time job. But in the US, in most small and medium communities, there are no such facilities for the mayors. It is a voluntary job and you have to engage in other professional occupations for a living. When they visited us, one of the places I took them was in our board meeting room where we sit and there are sittings for the public too. The public can listen to our discussion and suggest to us what we should do. But in Nepal, the meeting was held in private. I was really happy to see that the Khadbari Municipality adopted that idea here and, during my visit, they showed it to me at first. It may look like a small thing but there must be the participation of the public in the functioning of local government because we exist for the people. 

Are there any suggestions for Nepali mayors?

I suggest they be transparent and listen to people. The people should feel that they are being heard by their representatives. Sometimes, not every idea could be implemented but you should convince the people.

Satis Devkota is an associate professor of economics and management at the University of Minnesota Morris. He holds a PhD in economics from Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, US. He closely follows Nepal’s politics, economy and international politics. Devkota talks to Kamal Dev Bhattarai focusing on the Nov 20 elections.  What is your take on Nepal’s growing culture of alliance politics? In a democratic society, people are free to create their political parties and contest in elections, which are free of coercion and fair to all contestants. However, forming a political alliance among a group of political parties with diverse political ideologies—political-economic philosophies—blunts the purity of our democracy. Such an alliance is unnatural, and a reflection of the incompetency or insecurity of political parties engaged in forming such an alliance. In general, a political alliance is a group of political parties that are formally united and working together if they have common aims. Looking at the past 30 years of political history in Nepal, you can find only a couple of political alliances that make perfect sense.  Could you explain the culture of past alliances?  First, the NC-Left front alliance that was formed in 1990 together fought against the autocratic Panchayat regime to establish the Westminster model of parliamentary democracy in Nepal. The shared objective was achieved, and the country’s multi-party democracy was reinstated after 30 years. Second, after King Gyanendra dissolved the parliament and seized power in Feb 2005, a seven-party alliance was formed that fought against the king’s direct rule with the intent to restore parliament and multiparty democracy. In the face of broad opposition, the king restored the previous parliament in April 2006. Again, the shared objective of forming the political alliance was met. Besides, let’s evaluate the provisions to form the government in the current constitution of Nepal. A coalition government could be an alternative if a single party cannot achieve the majority in parliament. So, forming a political alliance to form a coalition government is constitutional, and that might lead to political stability if our political parties are prudent and understand political ethics, and respect the values of politics. Unfortunately, our leaders and political parties are not on that boat.  Forming a political alliance in the general election for the house of the representative and provincial election between the two major forces (socialist and capitalist) with the wider difference in ideology, political philosophy, and political-economic agendas is against the ethos of democracy and completely unnatural. It is entirely guided by a single objective: to size down the strength of CPN (UML) in parliament and the provincial positions and to stop KP Oli from being the prime minister again. Such an alliance is unacceptable in a flourishing democracy.  The political leaders are guided by their egos rather than their social responsibilities.  Will the Nov 20 elections ensure political stability? No. The recent public choice literature discusses various political features which crucially influence government behavior, and drive a wedge between what governments actually do and what they are advised to do by economists. Typically, when there is a coalition government led by a political alliance between the political parties with opposing ideologies, political power is dispersed, either across different wings of the government, or amongst political parties in a coalition, or across parties that alternate in power through the medium of elections. The desire to concentrate or hold on to power can result in political instability and inefficient economic policies.  For instance, lobbying by various interest groups, together with the ruling party’s wish to remain in power, often results in policy distortions being exchanged for electoral support. Generally, politicians are interested solely in maximizing their probability of surviving in office, so the resulting character of government is pretty much unstable and very far away from the benevolence assumed by more traditional normative theories of government behavior. In addition, political parties are almost exclusively concerned with furthering the interests of their own support groups. Thus, the conclusions that follow from this discussion are very much different from the conclusion that can be reached if there is a stable government.  During electioneering, all political parties commit to bringing the wave of development, but it is limited only to the slogan, what are the major hindrances to Nepal’s development? Political parties, their leaders, and policymakers lack a clear understanding of the determinants of growth and development in Nepal. Even though they know the common determinants, they may not internalize how each of those determinants affects growth and development, what strategies promote inclusive growth and sustainable development, and if that growth and development strategy leads to achieving the objective of a welfare state in the long run. Besides, political parties and policymakers do not have clear pictures of the intermediate and final outcomes of the long-run growth process. That creates confusion and policy dilemmas, which leads to misleading outcomes.  Actually, policymakers have to look at the proximate and fundamental factors that affect the growth and development of a country. Capital accumulation and productivity growth are the proximate determinants of growth. In contrast, luck, geography, culture, and institutions are fundamental determinants of the growth and development of any country in the world, and Nepal is not exception. Understanding this fact and internalizing the channel through which each of those factors affect our growth and development is fundamental in the first place. That knowledge helps policymakers form evidence-based policies to achieve high growth, alleviate poverty, reduce inequalities, and promote all-faced development in the country. That says there is not just a single hindrance to growth and development in current Nepal. How does a coalition government affect good governance and service delivery? As I have mentioned earlier, a coalition government led by a political alliance of parties with opposing political views leads to political instability and forms an unstable government. That can be a cause of economic distortions. Unstable coalitions or governments that are not likely to remain in power for an extended period of time are liable to introduce policy distortions for at least two reasons.  First, such governments obviously have very short time horizons that have important implications for economic policy in general and budgetary policy in particular. If political power alternates rapidly and randomly between competing political parties or groups of parties, then each government will follow myopic policies since it assigns a low probability of being relocated. Hard policy options whose benefits flow after a long gestation lag are unlikely to be adopted by such a government. Instead, it may spend indiscriminately in order to satisfy the short-term needs of its support groups. This will result in a legacy of high debt to its successor. Although this may constrain the actions of the next government, the current government does not care about the priorities of the next government. The second route through which the rapid turnover of governments may induce policy distortions is relevant in the case of coalition governments. The shorter the expected duration of such governments, the more difficult it will be for the ruling coalition members to agree on policies.  Of course, the more heterogeneous the parties in the ruling coalition, the greater the lack of cooperation will be. Each party in the ruling coalition may then try to promote populist policies in order to exploit its own narrow interests. The most likely casualties of all this will be fiscal discipline, good governance, and service delivery.