The half-yearly ‘progress report’ of KP Sharma Oli government is far from sat­isfactory. Some of the progress­es enlisted by the prime minis­ter can at best be described as incomplete. Take for instance the credit for dismantling the ‘syndicates’ in public transport. Suspicions are rife. Have the syn­dicates been replaced with some­thing better? Or has his Minister of Transport quietly allowed the status quo to remain? In the past few weeks, we have also seen public anger across the country over higher local taxes. There have been pro­tests, sit-ins and relay hunger rallies opposing higher taxation without corresponding improve­ment in services.

 

If you listen to people close to the government, they will tell you that they are under attack from the opposition, civil society, international community and the media. They see a similar narra­tive emerging from all fronts and suspect there is concerted effort to discredit the government.

 

When you raise the question of delivery, they will tell you that they have done more in six months compared to what the previous governments achieved in the same period; and they blame the ailing system of governance for slow progress on other fronts. I don’t think you can disagree on the last two points, yet the fact remains—unlike previous govern­ments, this one enjoys a two-third majority in the parliament and that people are thus entitled to expect more.

 

Structural problem

 

The problem lies in the inability or unwillingness, or both, to fine-tune government structures and processes—even six months after assuming the office. Clearly the existing executive structure and processes aren’t serving the twin government purpose of imple­menting the constitution and delivering prosperity.

 

The current civil service system, put in place in 1950s, has seen very little revision. While over 50 different committees have been formed to recommend reforms in the intervening years, many of those recommendations were never implemented. Compared to 1950s, the government today has a larger role in the society; the nature of public policy problems as well as modes of interventions are constantly undergoing chang­es; and the rapid technological innovations have added complex­ities to governance processes—often requiring instant actions. Add to this the new federal con­text of Nepal.

 

For these reasons, the feder­al government needs to go back to drawing boards and rearticu­late its mission and vision before thinking about the workforce, structure and processes.

 

Agenda for reform

 

Reform must be performance driven and it must begin at the top. The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) appears to be overstaffed and underworked. Sure it needs party officials and loyalists, but it also needs professionals who can bring to bear their exposure from elsewhere to raise the standards. The first step is to clearly delegate roles and responsibilities of the teams at the PMO—dividing them into economic, foreign policy and national security, legislative, pub­lic relations and political manage­ment (including Center-Province relations) teams.

 

Each team will work with rele­vant ministry, department or tier of government to push through government agenda. Each team as well as each individual in these teams would be assessed on their performance on a peri­odic basis. As I argued in this space (July 20-26 edition) before, a designated Chief of Staff should ideally oversee their perfor­mance. This sort of set-up would be immensely helpful for the gov­ernment to deliver on its promises in a timely manner.

 

The government is currently behind on drafting several laws required to implement the consti­tution. If there were a functioning legislative team at the PMO, it would have been its responsibil­ity to work with Ministry of Law to ensure a timely submission of draft laws to the parliament. The economic team for its part would have already facilitated the formation of natural resourc­es and fiscal commission—there­by clarifying much of confusion and anger surrounding excessive taxes. In a functioning system, each team would have their daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly agendas cut out—offering a tangible basis for success.

 

Under the current system, it is more misses than hits. It could stay that way for the remainder of the government’s tenure, if they do not get to work on mod­ernizing its structure and pro­cesses immediately. And if NCP officials don’t want anti-incum­bency and underperformance to mar their chances of another term, they better get down to the business of modernizing the gov­ernment with urgency.