Nepal is poor and underdeveloped for many reasons but one of the main, in my view, is the scant attention paid to carrying out government operations to get best bang for the buck. In other words, we, as a nation, have been completely oblivious to the fact that we are getting perhaps among the lowest returns from public spending. These returns represent only a fraction of what similar amounts committed to private investment or by honest governance system could deliver. In the case of private sector investors, their spending behavior is constrained by what we call the balance-sheet problem, including the possibility of bankruptcy. Government, by contrast, faces no such constraint and, technically, is free to spend regardless of the returns.
The best recent example of government’s wasteful spending behavior and—its overall profligate budget policies—is the time and resources it has committed to the constitution-writing effort, with little to show for it so far. The enormous investment made for this exercise until now has brought little or no return for the nation and, more sadly, we are still not done with this pursuit of what appears to be an ever-elusive dream.
How much have we spent so far on a new constitution? No one knows; may be no one cares. But, still, let us do some arithmetic. The five-year-long constitution-making effort so far has involved the effort of thousands of well-paid parliamentarians, bureaucrats, legal experts and politicians. Counting just the expenses of maintaining 601-strong legislature over a four-year period would come to billions of rupees per year, in direct and indirect costs. My tentative estimate is that we have spent at least 12 billion rupees for the upkeep of CA and for covering indirect costs arising out of its use of public facilities and government employees, and in engaging political parties and their cadres in deliberations on constitutional issues.
Other examples
How does Nepal’s constitution-making—both in terms of methodology and time and money spent—compare with other countries? We can look at two well-known examples that are taken as models for framing a democratic constitution, those of India and the US.
Much like the effort being made in Nepal, Indian constitution is the product of a Constituent Assembly election from which 308 members were elected by general franchise. The first session of the Assembly was held on December 22, 1946, and, after discussions on various aspects of the Constitution, it voted to appoint a Constitutional Drafting Committee on August 29, 1947. The committee was headed by a prominent constitutional expert, Dr BR Ambedkar, who submitted the draft of the full constitution to the CA Committee on November 4, 1947, or in less than 100 days since its commencement. The full Assembly approved the draft constitution two years later, on November 26, 1949, and the new constitution took effect on January 26, 1950.
Over the period of CA’s work on the constitution—which the official sources recorded at two years, 11 months, and 18 days—total cost for funding its operations came to 100 crores Indian rupees or, in today’s prices, NRs.16 billion, a bit higher than the amount Nepal has already spent.
Another notable example is the US, which had its constitution drafted in mere four months. The 74 delegates from 12 States gathered in Philadelphia on May 25, 1787 elected five of their own to draft a full constitution, which was ready for a vote and ratification on September 17, 1787, in under four months. There was no full consensus on the draft constitution. Many delegates remained opposed to many aspects of it, with only 39 of the original 74 delegates voting in favor. The celebrated delegate Benjamin Franklin was also unhappy with the draft but, nonetheless, he voted in favor of adopting it, saying: “There are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them. I went with the majority, because I expect no better and because I am not sure that is not the best.” This spoke volumes about Franklin’s greatness and showed why he is regarded as the most loved of the Founding Fathers!
A bad beginning
In view of these experiences—not only those above but other similar instances—Nepal has fared miserably and looking at the time and money spent on writing the constitution, the whole exercise can be labeled irresponsible and outlandish. Why was it necessary to create an army of constitution-makers without any limit of time and money? Why were no accountability and performance evaluation criteria set? Delegates should have ideally done their job within a set timeframe (preferably months not years) to minimize public expenses.
There was no reason to assume that Nepal could make the world’s best constitution and should be spending a fortune in the pursuit of this dream. Such irrationality of the political leadership is clear from four years and billions of rupees spent with nothing concrete to show for it—with regard to the constitution and the country’s overall situation.
The sad part of it all is that the zeal for such irrationality hasn’t ebbed yet, which is obvious from the current drive to hold yet another election, regardless of the time and money that it would entail. The much larger cost to society and the country is that this intense focus on constitution-making has diverted precious resources away from many productive pursuits that would have contributed to social welfare in much more significant ways. My assumption is that political stalemate engineered by the constitutional crisis must have lopped-off 2-3 percentage points from nation’s economic growth which, over a five-year period, amounts to 100 billion Rupees’ loss for national economy.
A visionary document
A constitution is essentially a visionary document, but it is not written in stone. There have been 14 amendments to the US Constitution since its adoption in 1789 and, for the Indian Constitution, such amendments number over a hundred. Why then have our leaders zeroed-in on making the best constitution that will presumably remain good for a hundred, even a thousand years? A reasonable expectation is that any constitution we make now will last for no more than a dozen years, may be even less. Then, why not try to come up with almost any constitution, say within six months to a year, that at least provides a framework for all parties to put in new ideas and make amendments later on?
One easy and sensible way to rationalize the constitution-making process would be to hold two elections at one time—election for a regular parliament and a separate one for the constitution. Election for the constitution will choose no more than 14 delegates, one each from the former zonal constituencies. In the case of a tie vote in this constitution-making body, the President will have the authority to cast a tie-breaker vote.
Such a solution to the constitutional quagmire would be short, simple, and, most importantly, save lots of money, while the government operations can be carried out without interruptions and without imagining the worse.
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