Reconstruction authority working at snail’s pace

NRA struggles to recruit staff members even after one month

KATHMANDU, Jan 25:The newly-formed National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) has been working at a snail's pace if a month-long work of the authority is any indication.

Though the prime minister and top officials of the NRA had earlier announced that it would work on a war-footing, the NRA has utterly failed to gather momentum in its work despite the fact that the autonomous body, authorized by a parliamentarian act, exercises full authority in decision making on its own.

The NRA's activities so far have been limited only on publicity campaign while it has failed to start its real business in the 14 districts most affected by the last year's devastating earthquake.

The authority which was supposed to start its work without wasting a single day has failed to recruit minimum number of staffers to begin its administrative and other basic works.

After months-long dispute among the major political parties over hand picking their trusted man for the post of the CEO of the NRA, the parliament had endorsed the bill to form the body in mid-December. The parties finally agreed to appoint Sushil Gyewali for the top job.

On January 11, the NRA's directive committee headed by the prime minister passed over Rs 290 million budget for the NRA. With this, it was widely expected that the authority would expedite its task as claimed by the prime minister, top government officials and the CEO himself.

Over two weeks have elapsed since then but the CEO has failed to recruit officials for its central office, let alone beginning works at the ground in the most-affected districts where hundreds of thousands of quake victims have been living pathetic life under flimsy huts.

"We have already written to the ministry of general administration requesting them to provide 208 officials to the authority but we haven't even received any response from the ministry," Madhusudhan Adhikari, acting secretary at the authority, told Republica. On Sunday, the ministry informed that it could send only 21 officials to the central office of the authority.

The authority has not been able to set up its seven regional offices in the quake-affected districts in lack of staff though it decided to establish the offices on January 13, according to Adhikari. The regional offices are supposed to monitor and facilitate all the tasks related to the reconstruction at the ground level.

The NRA has failed to exercise its power and work as an effective autonomous body, which is its main objective . Government officials say that the NRA's working and decision making style hasn't been any different than the usual and lengthy bureaucratic works at the ministries.

Officials at the Ministry of Urban Development said that the officials at the NRA have done nothing more than the publicity campaign.

"The work being carried out these days are only those programs that were prepared by the related ministries as sought by the National Planning Commission prior to
the formation of the NRA," said Padma Mainali, spokesperson at the ministry of urban development.

According to Mainali, as the authority is entangled in stuffs like recruiting staff at the central and local levels and other administrative tasks like finalizing necessary directives related to procurements, it may not have been able to hold talks with the line ministries for formulating new programs as well as expediting the already approved ones by excising its special authority.