KATHMANDU, Feb 14: Speaker Onsari Gharti has been found to be tweaking a parliamentary regulation in order to recruit a large number of employees on contract at the Parliament Secretariat.
The Parliament Secretariat Employees Administration Regulation allows appointing only 68 employees on contract. Therefore, Speaker Gharti has tweaked the regulation so as to hire more people on contract, said a senior officer at the Parliament Secretariat, requesting anonymity.
An amendment to the regulation was published in Nepal Gazette last month allowing the secretariat to recruit 'necessary' staff as computer operators, tweaking the existing rule. The Parliament Secretariat has 367 permanent positions under the Parliament Service.
Sources said that Gharti has appointed three new employees in the Parliament Secretariat on contract after tweaking the regulation. The new staffers are supposed to look after the live streaming of House activities on the state-owned television and Youtube. "Those appointees are not experts; they are well known Maoist party cadres or supporters," said an officer at the secretariat.
Gharti tweaked the Parliament Secretariat Employees Administration Regulation, which allowed hiring just two plumbers, eight drivers and 58 office assistants on contract.
But Speaker Gharti has appointed some special class joint secretaries at the Parliament Secretariat including security, legal, and press experts and officer-level staffers at the computer and other sections.
Parliament has been hiring two security experts at the same time. According to multiple staffers at the Parliament Secretariat, Sanu Bhai Khadka was appointed on direct instruction from Speaker Gharti though Hari Bhakta Khadka was already in the same position.
Likewise, Prem Prakash Oli was appointed as an health expert following pressure from the Secretariat of the Speaker though Pradeep Kumar Ghimire was already in the same post.
Earlier, positions under contract basis in the Parliament Secretariat had been increased through the new Organization and Management (O&M) Survey, after Gharti was elected as the Speaker from the CPN (Maoist Center). A recommendation by Gharti for an appointment to the post of secretary in the Parliament Secretariat has been put on hold by President Bidya Bhandari for months.
Gharti was praised after she decided to slash the expenditure of the Parliament Secretariat by ending the practice of distributing food coupons during the meetings of parliamentary committees and full House.
"The decision to bar food coupons was welcomed by all as it was being widely misused but Gharti has again increased the expenditure of the Parliament Secretariat by appointing unnecessary staffers," said an employee at the Parliament Secretariat.
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