Five million for lawmakers
Among other ills the country suffered in the name of transitional politics was the utter misuse (very few lawmakers made optimum use of it for public benefit) of what came to be called Constituency Development Program (CDP) and Constituency Infrastructure Special Program (CISP). Under CDP, each individual MP was entitled to spend as much as Rs five million and Rs 30 million was allocated under CISP, which was again spent as per the discretion of individual MPs, irrespective of pre-defined formal processes of spending—all in the name of development. Though objective was to ensure local benefits, as things stood, most of the money going to the lawmakers through these schemes proved to be a big drain on state exchequer. The anomaly ran so deep and wide and yet instead of maintaining transparency of the fund, the lawmakers would demand increment every budget session. A number of reports over the last few years have suggested that lawmakers misused the money by distributing it to their cadres and their near and dear ones. As such both CDP and CISP programs remained controversial so much so that an elected member of House of Representatives in January this year filed a writ at the Supreme Court against Sher Bahadur Deuba government’s decision of implementing projects chosen under CISP and CDP. The court had issued an interim order prohibiting implementation of such projects.
CDP and CISP have come under heavy media and public criticism precisely because of the fund misuse. People had expected that the new federal and provincial legislatures would do away with these faulty schemes. In this context, it is disheartening to know that lawmakers of Province 4 have demanded Rs 5 million each again. They have demanded this money from the budget the central government has allocated to the province for infrastructure development and to manage administrative expenses. This demand should not be fulfilled because of these reasons. First, the job of the lawmakers is to deliberate and draft laws for the greater good of their constituencies. Second, this kind of spending has already generated a number of controversies. Our lawmakers in the past have failed to, rather deliberately, utilize such money for the greater good of people. Most of the budget under this title has been used to warm up the pockets either of lawmakers themselves or the cadres close to them. And there is no guarantee of similar thing happening again in the future.
Back in the past, we had no mechanisms at the local levels to fulfill development needs. With elections of local levels across the country we now have local governments to identify local development needs and demand the budget from the center for the same. Most importantly, the government is already struggling to manage resources and funds for creating infrastructures and maintain other logistical expenses for the provincial and local governments. The finance ministry has declared cash crunch. In this context, the aim of lawmakers, both at the provinces and the central parliament, should economical and judicious spending. The country has a number of challenges—from creating infrastructure to managing administrative costs for the federal set up to rebuilding houses destroyed by 2015 earthquakes. Fulfilling the demand of lawmakers in Province 4 would set a dangerous precedent as other lawmakers from other provinces will also ask for the same. Under the new set up, we need to establish a system whereby not a single penny of government fund gets wasted and misused. The government of K P Oli should clearly say no to such controversial demand. We have learnt a bitter lesson from CDP and CISP. We cannot afford to repeat similar mistakes under any excuse.
