They had been warned. Media had cautioned that in absence of strong mechanism to curb possible irregularities, lawmakers could gobble up all or most of the money allocated under Constituency Development Fund. They took no heed. Each of 240 lawmakers elected under first-past-the-post system got Rs 10 million to spend as they please in the name of Constituency Development Program last year. It has been increased to Rs 15 million. The new budget has confirmed this.Like last year, lawmakers united demanding the increment of CDF to Rs 50 million. Like last year, they started a signature campaign (more than 300 lawmakers are said to have appealed for this self-serving cause) and submitted it to the Ministry of Finance. Like last year, they threatened to obstruct budget session if their demand was not addressed. Neither Prime Minister Sushil Koirala nor Finance Minister Ram Sharan Mahat said 'no.' Civil society, anti-corruption watchdogs, bureaucrats and National Planning Commission stayed mum. And here we are, allowing Rs 15 million to be misused under each lawmaker's discretion. Budget has endorsed the scheme; nothing will undo it.
Last year, it was collective hubris of Nepali Congress and CPN-UML over their victory in 2013 CA polls that drove them to make such an outlandish demand, and to prevail in the end. The vanquished supported the cause because the benefits would trickle down to them as well. They took people for granted.
What had been feared then has come true. Freedom Forum's recent report unveils some ugly secrets. Money under CDF, it reported, was not used in development projects; lawmakers selected projects to please their supporters and they distributed it like largesse to institutions affiliated to their own parties. They flouted all guidelines and regulations. NC lawmakers, including Local Development Minister Prakash Man Singh and lawmaker Rajendra Kumar KC, are at the forefront of massive misuse, says the report. The CDF scam, however, is one among many willful deceptions perpetrated by them.
The government could have made all spending under CDF transparent through timely monitoring and auditing. It could have introduced the provision of blacklisting and prohibiting MPs found to be misusing funds to file candidacy for another election. All such measures had been suggested. Nobody cared.
The rut runs deeper. Political leaders from the center allocate budget for local development, and their cadres and contractors at the local level try to grab as much as they can. So the roads that should have been blacktopped years ago remain muddied and crumbling. Fake reports are made to claim budget money. To create illusion of development, construction and maintenance works are sped up at the end of the fiscal year. But the motive, again, is to misuse the budget. A huge sum is allocated as development budget. But government cannot spend more than 70 percent (about half of it spent at the end of fiscal year, which means no or little quality work).
Then there is annual budget announcement, with same repetitive pattern. Policies that best serve the people—such as measures to control price rise, schemes for farmers and employment opportunities for rural poor—are rarely implemented. The ones to be effectively implemented, right from next day, are salary increment of about half a million civil servants, which always becomes a benchmark for raising price of commodity goods, education and health costs (one wonders why it did not happen this year) and the scheme like CDF. This is the program to enrich politicians themselves. So ruling as well as opposition leaders are in it.
Opposition parties raise a storm of protest against government policies and programs for public consumption. The budget, they say, is anti-people, regressive, and ritualistic. The same party, when in the government, appreciates similar programs. If Congress and UML were in opposition, they would probably rile against the government—whoever it is led by—for presenting a budget like the one unveiled on Tuesday.
Deception continues. When the parties struck a historic 16-point deal last month, we cheered. We believed they are back to business. But the constitution course is being delayed again. Those who endorsed and lauded the deal have started to speak against it. Those who were satisfied with resolving province delineation through transformed Legislature-Parliament want it to be settled by the Constituent Assembly, before the constitution. We know what that means: They will be back debating whether to amalgamate parts of Jhapa, Sunsari, Morang, Kailali and Kanchanpur into hill or Tarai states. This will be an open invitation for integrated Far-west and other such movements. Constitution will take a backseat.
Much of what is assured in the budget ultimately goes back to them—directly or through their own cadres. This happened with Youth Self Employment Fund and several similar past initiatives. Much of the budget pledged for health sector lands in private hospitals with considerable stakes of political leaders. Public institutions—hospitals, education and other enterprises—are always in a shambles. Seventeen out of 37 public enterprises in the country are in debt and facing existential crisis, for which no other than state actors and political institutions are responsible. Public sector reform is never the priority. We have the same bunch of people who formulate programs and policies, who promise to implement them (but don't), and who pretend to devise measures to address these shortcomings. The vicious cycle goes on. This is the case of judge, jury and criminal being the same man.
None of this will really matter to them. The more the status quo continues the better it is for them. What we call a mess is an opportunity for them to keep control over state resources and to entrench their interests. No leader will have to lose life for lack of health care. Top leaders have direct access to state coffers to fund their treatments abroad, hospitals in Nepal and health care of ordinary Nepalis be damned. No political leader, nor their beneficiaries, is deprived of health, education, comfort and state benefits. Their future is secure—if not here, in foreign countries.
They know how to impress on the people that things need to change and that they are committed to this cause. So some of them preach to us, citing books by various scholars, that when state actors fail to provide basic needs to the people, extraction of resources from the state becomes an act of banditry. And this has been major obstacle for reform. They will not fail to mention that nations fail when political and economic institutions become "extractive" and concentrate power and opportunity in the hands of only a few. But this is precisely what they do. Constituency Development Fund is only one facet of it.
Framers of the constitution express "commitment to create the bases of socialism" but they leave the commoners completely at the mercy of market capitalism. Nothing will help reverse this order. Media will only help people to know how they are being treated. The country literally belongs to handful of politicians, businessmen and syndicates of profit regime.
Don't take my words. You might run through Directive Principles of the State in the constitution. Such principles serve as guidelines for state actors while framing laws and policies for governance. Our draft constitution also has this provision in Part Four. It promises to ensure health, education, food, shelter, human rights and everything that one can imagine, much like the promises in the recent budget. But what if you get none of it? What will you do? Where will you go? You are not allowed to complain. There is a statutory warning at the end: "No question shall be raised in any court whether provisions contained in [Directive Principles, Policies and Responsibilities of the State] are implemented or not." It will make no difference to them. The country is theirs.
Twitter: @mahabirpaudyal
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