In the past decade, one thing we have repeatedly heard is prime ministers and ministers issuing instructions to their line ministries and departments to fix this and solve that. Many of these individuals have been prime ministers and ministers multiple times, yet every time they issue the same-old instructions. Why do elected executives seem unable to do anything about a clear case of insubordination, incompetence and neglect of duties? Why do they fail to get things done, the things that really matter to the public, but show great urgency in completing things that seem to benefit few individuals?
For instance the efforts to expand and relocate presidential and vice presidential mansions respectively, a recent push, have picked up steam in comparison to other public works, which have been in the pipeline for long. Have we built a public system that enables or incentivizes private gain at public expense? Does shutting down the existing police training center without a viable alternative justify as public good? It certainly may provide additional comfort for the president, but at what cost?
I am not against offering the highest office bearers of the country befitting perks and privileges, but they also have to be incremental and need to go hand in hand with the improvement of basic services for citizens. It somehow feels that our leaders have become unresponsive to public sentiments.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the prime minister on Dec 2 accepted a dubious good governance award carrying a cash prize of US $100,000 against the backdrop of news reports that the very organization that give him the award is lobbying to get the state to cough up Rs 32 million. Even if the prime minister does not keep the cash for himself, it certainly feels like a bribery of sort.
One would credit Oli with few achievements, notable among them his role in helping Nepal gain a degree of strategic autonomy in its foreign policy. But to say that he has done anything remotely resembling good governance is a stretch. Absence of self-awareness and periodic reflection is a dangerous trait in any leader.
To be fair, PM Oli has made efforts, yet there often seems a wide gap between his words and deeds; he isn’t rigorous enough and gives people around him an easy pass. One cannot fault him too much here, given his poor health. But the least we expect from him is to invest in people who can bring about an improved system, one that promotes public good. When he took office, there was a lot of talk of governance reform and that it would start from the top—meaning the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). Government reform means both modernization and accountability. As I argued in my previous piece in this space, only if leaders themselves shift gears from how they have been running their political parties can they hope to lead a modern government capable of delivering prosperity.
No doubt, attempts have been made to modernize the government, yet in the absence of a strategic direction and sustained leadership on these issues, they appear more of an accident than a new emerging norm.
In what seemed like a step in the right direction, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli recently summoned ministers and officials to assess their performance. But the PM should know that performance-based contracts for civil servants have been thrown around for quite sometime, and yet they hardly seem to have made a dent on the overall delivery, let alone resulted in quality work, of the public sector. Absence of political will and frequent government changes had made it difficult to enforce meaningful reform. But that was in the past, or so we were led to believe by the new government. Yet the business-as-usual continues.
If the current system perpetuates, we are sure to have a form of kleptocracy, not a prosperous democracy. It is still not too late for PM Oli to leave a legacy behind by putting his characteristic dogged determination, which he has shown on other occasions, to work.
By: John Narayan Parajuli
