The government has asked donor agencies in Nepal to cooperate over this matter, and myrepublica.com has learnt that donors too take such trips as useless and have begun to act accordingly. [break]
Sources familiar with developments informed myrepublica.com that both the government and donors were compelled to take steps to curb a growing trend of en mass foreign trips by government officials, a majority of them with donor money.
"It is a joint collaboration of the government and donors to stop ´disturbing misuses´ of resources meant for the poor of Nepal," said a source. The steps include denying visas and concurrence letters even for visits under programs that donors had earlier agreed to, added the source.
In this regard, the Ministry of Finance (MoF) recently communicated with major donor agencies and foreign embassies in the capital to raise its concern over foreign visits and their impact on national coffers.
"It is disturbing that a large number of government employees, including senior officials, are using all possible means to make meaningless foreign trips at a time when they were supposed to be spending their energies formulating plans and programs for the coming fiscal years," said the source.
In a series of recent developments, the World Bank declined to issue no objection letters to 40 officials from the Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction who were planning to visit Vietnam, Cambodia and Sri Lanka in three different groups. All three visits were supposed to be funded with World Bank money earmarked for the Emergency Peace Support Program.
Peace Ministry Secretary Punya Prasad Neupane confirmed to myrepublica.com that the World Bank withheld concurrence letters for the trips after MOF raised objections.
Sources said that major donors and some diplomatic mission, including the Australian embassy, objected to such en mass trips abroad and they conveyed their concern to the government, including the finance minister and other officials at his ministry and officials the Office of Prime Minister and Council of Ministers.
They seem concerned that the same individuals are going abroad frequently, leaving few people working at the ministries, said an official.
The major donors, including the World Bank, started to raise their eyebrow over foreign trips especially following the climate change summit held in Denmark last December. The summit saw 29 participants from the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology alone, with donor money covering their travel expenses.
Some donors have informed the government that they have seen officials, particularly from the Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Local Development and the Office of Prime Minister and Council of Ministers, going on foreign trips en mass.
In addition, they have already informed that their embassies have started to carefully evaluate visa applications by government officials who want to go abroad under donor funding.
Last month alone, 29 officials from the Ministry of Education went abroad. Currently, nearly two dozen officials from the Ministry of Health are abroad.
kiran@myrepublica.com
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