Money & ministers

It is good to learn that the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has tightened the process of releasing reimbursement for domestic trips made by ministers. Henceforth, if we are to go by the letter dispatched by the PMO to ministers, it will not reimburse expenses if the ministers fail to show evidences of where, when and why they made such trips. The PMO had to take such a step because most bills submitted by ministers were either not transparent or had been tampered with.

While, on the one hand, it is good to learn that the Madhav Kumar Nepal-led government is making efforts to rein in such irregularities, on the other hand, it is equally shameful to note that those who are expected to display the highest level of integrity cannot be trusted with even the most basic of things.

Such despicable behavior by high-ranking politicians, however, is not exclusive to Nepal. It is, in fact, rife in most countries of South Asia. This is certainly not linked with the culture of the region as many would like to believe. However, there is no denying that this has a direct correlation with the fact that every person in this part of the world, irrespective of their educational background, can choose to make politics their profession.

Unless, we set a minimum educational qualification, say a Bachelor’s Degree, as criteria to contest elections for parliament, this problem is here to stay. That said, we are also aware that it is no panacea to pervasive ills such as corruption, nepotism or cronyism as is evident from examples of irregularities that regularly make it to the news even in advanced democracies such as Japan. But it will certainly address the problem to a large extent.

The incumbent cabinet ministers have already spent 20 million rupees, four times more than what the budget allocated to them, on domestic trips in the past one year. So it was natural and morally right for Prime Minister Nepal, who has himself never been involved in any controversy involving money, to take this move to stop taxpayer’s money from being wasted.

Our only skepticism is that this positive step might remain limited on paper. Nepal, after all, has never been short of plans and policies. It is their lack of implementation that has impeded our progress. But if Prime Minister Nepal, who is presently leading a caretaker government, is able to institutionalize this practice in whatever little time he is left with, he will have done a decent service to this impoverished nation where even a little amount of wisely-used money can make some difference.

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