KATHMANDU, Dec 15: In a blatant violation of the Civil Service Act, 2049 BS and the Civil Service Regulations, 2050 BS, government employees have also become representatives at the 11th General Convention of the CPN-UML.
Section 44 of the Civil Service Act, 2049 BS clearly states that “civil servants shall not participate in politics.” Likewise, the code of conduct that civil servants are required to follow specifies that government employees must not take part in political activities, party meetings, rallies or processions. The federal civil service law that the government is preparing to introduce also includes provisions barring civil servants from participating in political activities.
However, major political parties themselves have repeatedly violated these provisions. At the 11th General Convention of the CPN-UML, Kalpana Thapa, a civil servant at the Nepal Electricity Authority office in Butwal, arrived in Kathmandu as a general convention representative. Similarly, from the UML-affiliated Nepal Government Employees’ Organization (NGEO), former president Lekhnath Koirala (a retired employee) and current office-bearers Kedar Devkota (currently working at Budhanilkantha Municipality), Prabhash Sah (currently working at the Department of Agriculture), Surya Kuwar (currently working at the Ministry of Finance), Ambika Dhamala (currently working at Lalitpur Metropolitan City), Amrit Baral (a health worker), among others, became general convention representatives.
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Dr. Santosh Paudel, a tenth-level senior consultant physician at the National Trauma Center, had also attempted to be selected as a UML general convention representative but was not chosen.
Government employees became general convention representatives through quotas allocated to the Professional Federation Nepal, the Kathmandu Valley Special Committee, and health workers. According to a UML-affiliated employee, civil servants were selected as representatives from the “special” category, considered UML’s 14th front. On whether government employees are permitted to serve as representatives at a party’s general convention, opinions among civil servants remain divided.
A former civil servant who had also served as an office-bearer of the NGEO said, “As long as one is in active civil service, it is not permissible to become a party’s general convention representative, as government employees must not violate the law. That is why, while I was in service, I did not become a UML general convention representative and sent someone else in my place. Only after retirement did I become a general convention representative.”
Bholanath Pokharel, a former president of the NGEO who has repeatedly served as a general convention representative in previous UML conventions, said government employees are allowed to become party general convention representatives. “After the 2006 people’s movement, it was emphasized that the services delivered by civil servants must be impartial and neutral, but they should be allowed to express political affiliation,” he said. He added that although he had been a representative several times in the past, he was not a representative this time.
Following the 2006 movement, amendments to the Civil Service Act granted government employees the right to form employee unions and organizations aligned with different political parties. As a result, various party-affiliated employee unions and organizations currently exist. The government has also provided one ropani of land each to employee unions and organizations at prime locations near Singha Durbar, where large office buildings have been constructed. In the forthcoming federal civil service law, there has been extensive debate on whether to allow party-wise employee organizations. However, the draft retains the existing provision allowing such organizations.
Despite violating the law, civil servants have openly participated in party programs during office hours without taking leave. No action has been taken against them so far.
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