KATHMANDU, March 24: Direct orders from Minister for Forest and Soil Conservation, Kiran Gurung, has aborted a climate change study tour of Himalayan Mustang district by 15 members of the Constituent Assembly (CA).
A day after Minister Gurung ordered the National Trust for Nature Conservation to terminate the three-day tour of members of the Parliamentary Committee on Environment, Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction (PCECD), the "stunned" CA members expressed their rage against the minister at a press conference on Tuesday. [break]
"The forest minister canceled our trip in the last minute and refuses to give reasons for doing so," said PCECD chief Sunil Babu Pant. Pant and his team were to fly to Mustang Tuesday morning.
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The PCECD had conducted a similar environmental trip to Nawalparasi and Chitwan districts, February 17-19, without any ministerial objection. The three-day trip to Mustang was going to study the effects of global warming on the mountainous region of Nepal and on the livelihoods of the locals.
"The minister intervened and blocked the budget from being released for the trip," Pant told myrepublica.com. "His motive is still unknown." The CA members – seven from Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), four from CPN (Unified Marxist-Leninist), two from CPN (United) and one each from Nepali Congress and CPN (Marxist-Leninist) – lodged their complaints about the Minister´s decision with the CA Chair Subas Nembang on Monday.
When Nembang called the minister, the latter asked him not to interfere in his ministry. The reason given by the minister was that he was not kept in the loop about the trip.
"The (flight) tickets were already in our hands," said Pant. "But the Forest Ministry’s blatant interference has raised big question mark on CA Member´s rights to engage with the people and rights to raise such issues at parliament. We express our deep contempt for Ministry’s such kind of act."
The CA members have sought clarification from the government particularly from Forest Ministry on their move. Minister Gurung couldn´t reached for his comments on the issue.
