A high-level Monitoring Committee led by Umesh Mainali, secretary at Ministry of Local Development (MoLD), has been formed to undertake the investigations.
“The committee has been formed directly as per the instruction of Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal,” said a cabinet source. He informed myrepublica.com that the committee has been authorized to punish officials involved in corruption and terminate foul deals.
The government showed special interest in local bodies operations after media reported rising incidents of anomalies at the local bodies. The latest in the series had reported the involvement of leaders in all-party municipal development committee in selling public land in Dang and pocketing handsome money.
Earlier, MoLD, too, had briefed the PM about rising incidence of corruption, misuse of block grants and ad hoc project selection and awarding contracts in the local bodies in the absence of elected representatives.
According to the statistics, local bodies across the country are receiving a budget of Rs 35 billion for fiscal year 2009/10. Apart from this, the government has also allocated block grants worth Rs 12 billion to the DDCs and Village Development Committees for the year. The local bodies also handle some Rs 10 billion that is approved at the district level by Department of Local Infrastructure Development and Agricultural Roads for works like roads, drinking water, sanitation and construction of bridges, and also mobilize revenue locally by means like contracting out local resources.
However, in absence of elected representatives, their arrears have been soaring sharply in recent years.
A senior official at the Committee informed myrepublica.com that the probe sub-committees formed by the committee are soon fanning out to different parts of the country to start investigation.
“To start with, we are first investigating the municipalities and DDCs in 10 districts of five development regions from the next week,” said the source.
The districts listed for the first phase are Morang, Ilam, Bara, Rautahat, Kaski, Rupandehi, Banke, Surkhet, Kanchanpur and Dadeldhura. Interestingly, they are also the districts from where top leaders of political parties in the government hail.
“The sub-committee will start their works by investigating on why arrears of local bodies doubled in a single year in 2008/09,” stated the source, admitting that MoLD´s arrears were highest among all ministries in 2008/09.
The Auditor General´s Report for the year accounts MoLD of having arrears worth 11 percent of the total audited amount. The figure is too high considering any standard. Concerned officials too attribute unsettled accounts of Rs 1.37 billion of the ministry to corruption at the local bodies.
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