Nepal’s governance and government crisis is epitomized by pervasive corruption, particularly within major infrastructure projects and public procurement systems. High-profile scandals such as the Teramox controversy, the Widebody aircraft procurement debacle, irregularities in the Sikta irrigation project and land scams involving Lalita Niwas, Balmandir (Naxal), and the Bansbari Leather Shoe Factory demonstrate deeply-entrenched graft within state institutions. These cases reflect systemic weaknesses in accountability, where political patronage and institutional lethargy shield high-level offenders from prosecution.
The Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) decision to place Nepal on its gray list underscores the state’s failure to implement adequate legal and structural reforms against money laundering and terrorist financing. As reported by the Economic Times (3 March 2025), Nepal’s governance deficiencies marked by weak leadership, rampant corruption and fiscal mismanagement under Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s administration have exacerbated socio-economic vulnerabilities, further undermining public trust and economic stability. Notably, large-scale infrastructure projects, such as the Pokhara and Bhairahawa International Airports, have been marred by financial scandals.
Despite its mandate, the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) has failed to hold powerful actors accountable, instead prioritizing minor infractions—a practice that reinforces a culture of impunity. The pervasiveness of corruption across government tiers has stifled development, crippled public service delivery and eroded administrative efficiency. Macroeconomic consequences include stagnant agricultural productivity, sluggish employment growth, declining tourism and diminished global competitiveness.
The lack of robust oversight mechanisms has deepened governance paralysis, necessitating urgent institutional reforms to restore accountability, strengthen anti-corruption frameworks and rebuild public confidence in Nepal’s governance architecture.
Education sector
The education sector starkly illustrates this broader pattern of institutional failure. Recent weeks witnessed widespread teacher protests, with teachers marching from Maitighar to New Baneshwor demanding reforms aligned with Nepal’s federal framework and tangible improvements in educational quality. Despite repeated promises, successive political regimes have deprioritized educational development. This neglect has entrenched a branched education system of deteriorating public institutions on one side, and politically patronized private schools on the other. This failure is not merely a matter of policy oversight; it constitutes an existential threat to Nepal’s long-term development trajectory.
The central bank
One glaring example of Nepal’s institutional decay is the protracted failure to appoint a Governor, leaving the country’s central monetary regulator leaderless in contravention of the NRB Act. This statute explicitly mandates continuous leadership to safeguard monetary and financial stability. Yet political elites mainly from ruling parties have prioritized factional negotiations over institutional integrity, severely undermining the credibility and autonomy of the central bank. This leadership vacuum is symptomatic of a broader collapse in basic governance, extending the crisis well beyond corruption to a fundamental breakdown of institutional functionality. If left unaddressed, the erosion of the NRB’s authority could trigger long-term repercussions for monetary, financial stability and macroeconomic governance.
Farms, industry, tourism
Despite remaining an agrarian economy—where over 60 percent of the population relies on agriculture, which contributes 21.33 percent to GDP (NRB, 2024)—Nepal continues to face constrained agricultural productivity. In FY 2080-81 (2023-24), agricultural credit totaled Rs 347.84bn, yet output remains insufficient. Industrial capacity utilization is alarmingly low at 48.3 percent, even as industrial loans amount to Rs 1,580.10bn (NRB, 2025). Tourism remains a key sector, with 1.15m arrivals recorded in FY 2080-81 (2023-24), primarily from India (26.69 percent) and China (8.8 percent). However, the inclusion of Nepali diaspora holding foreign passports skews official data. While Chinese arrivals surged by 67.35 percent, and third-country visitors rose by 14.4 percent, the sustainability of this sector remains uncertain without accurate data and strategic planning.
Trade imbalance and fiscal risks
Nepal’s trade deficit is structurally unsustainable. Imports reached Rs 1,592.98bn, vastly outstripping exports of just Rs 152.36bn in FY 2023-24 (NRB, Feb 2025). Trade with India dominates (65 percent of volume), with imports from India at Rs 996.68bn compared to exports of Rs 103.18bn. Other key import sources include China (18.76 percent), the UAE (1.83 percent), and Ukraine (1.19 percent). Meanwhile, major export markets include the United States (11.36 percent), Germany (4.45 percent), and the United Kingdom (3.08 percent). Government expenditure patterns reveal further vulnerabilities. In FY 2022-23, consolidated spending rose by 11.1 percent to Rs 11,656.07bn, with current expenditures comprising 56.3 percent vastly outpacing capital investments. Debt servicing costs surged by 38.9 percent to Rs 196.23bn, pushing the federal deficit to 9.33 percent of GDP and the debt-to-GDP ratio to 46.75 percent by mid-April 2025, signaling mounting fiscal distress.
Labor drain and collapse of domestic opportunity
Chronic economic stagnation has fueled mass labor migration. In a single year, approximately 1.2m individuals, 661,125 men and 80,172 women sought foreign employment under formal permits. This exodus reflects a profound failure of domestic policy to generate employment or develop import-substituting industries. For instance, a young agricultural entrepreneur in Dang, cultivating capsicum and eggplant varieties on over two hectares of land, was forced to cease operations due to unsustainable competition from cheap, unregulated imports priced below Rs 20 per kilogram.
A national dairy survey reveals that local producers are increasingly uncompetitive against uncontrolled imports from porous borders, discouraging domestic investment. These examples point to systemic negligence of the government: Nepal possesses “immense” agricultural and industrial potential, yet policy inconsistencies, bureaucratic inefficiencies and pervasive rent-seeking have stifled productive initiative.
Entrepreneurial disincentives
Nepal’s seemingly comprehensive business regulatory regime is fundamentally undermined by flawed implementation. Regulatory bodies routinely impose opaque, obstructive barriers that actively deter entrepreneurial activity. Empirical evidence from a national survey of female-led MSMEs reveals that entrepreneurs face delays of six months to a year in accessing small business loans. Respondents likened banks to ‘institutionalized moneylenders’, citing predatory practices and bureaucratic obstruction. These structural barriers suppress innovation and perpetuate reliance on remittances. The federalization process has further exacerbated fiscal disparities.
FCGO (Financial Comptroller General Office) data for FY 2022/23 shows provinces receiving just 10.8 percent (Rs 204.68bn) of total expenditure, while local governments account for 27.4 percent. Alarmingly, only 26.39 percent of provincial funds reach local bodies. Furthermore, 62.74 percent of local expenditure is recurrent, severely crowding out capital investment (37.16 percent). Instead of enabling autonomous governance, federalism has become an instrument for partisan patronage. Political interference has hollowed out subnational politics, converting them into appendages of central party structures rather than engines of localized development.
Patronage and rent-seeking
Public subsidies and incentives intended to support entrepreneurship have been systematically captured by connected political elites. Rather than promoting business growth, the pro-business policy framework has devolved into a rent-seeking regime, requiring illicit payments for access to government support. This corrupt system distorts market competition, disadvantages legitimate enterprises, and sustains Nepal’s import dependence and labor migration. The key political elite in Nepal have eschewed genuine labor, instead sustaining their opulent lifestyles through entrenched rent-seeking practices and earning through illicit transactions. This has eroded the nation’s work ethic and severely undermined its culture of entrepreneurship.
These dynamics have yielded chronic underinvestment in capital expenditure, constrained productive capacity, failed import substitution and a sustained exodus of the working population. Without radical institutional reforms, Nepal’s economic trajectory will remain locked in this dysfunctional equilibrium. Necessary reforms include depoliticizing subnational politics, streamlining regulatory processes, allocating subsidies based on merit/performance, enhancing capital budgeting and enforcing fair trade protections.
Conclusion
Nepal’s economic stagnation is not the result of resource scarcity but of deep-rooted governance failures. Endemic corruption, bureaucratic inertia and institutionalized inefficiencies have crippled domestic production and eroded entrepreneurial confidence. The solution lies not in piecemeal policy adjustments, but in a transformative overhaul of the governance system anchored in accountability, transparency and institutional integrity. Also, it utterly requires the phasing out of recycled political elites. Only through such a systemic reconfiguration can Nepal hope to escape its current developmental storm and achieve a resilient, inclusive and self-sustaining economy.
The author is a former chair of the Nepal Stock Exchange and was a PhD Research Fellow at the University of Basel
