High time to review Rs 1m dole, say experts

KATHMANDU, MAY 06 -

Two months before the closing of the fiscal year, the Ministry of Finance has decided to release Rs 1 million development and infrastructure funds to each of the 568 lawmakers. It has invited a huge uproar, leading to a fresh debate whether the lawmakers can enjoy such provision.

After a protracted dispute over the issue between the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Local Develop-ment (MoLD), many sitting and retired bureaucrats seemed to have acknowledged that it was indeed a wrong practice.

The CPN-UML government introduced it in the mid-1990s by distributing funds amounting upto half a million rupees for sitting members of parliament. And the tradition has continued without any substantive amendments.

The MoLD, under pressure from lawmakers from the ruling Nepali Congress and CPN-UML to resume such practice, had forwarded a proposal to the Finance Ministry to release funds at the fag end of the fiscal year. While the Prime Minister’s Office and the Finance Ministry are said to be unimpressed with such a proposal initially, mounting pressure eventually forced Prime Minister Sushil Koirala and Finance Minister Ram Sharan Mahat to release the funds without delay.

“Without any formal proposal, the Cabinet took a special decision citing past practices and tradition,” said a senior government official.

Basically, the job of lawmakers is to formulate laws and policies, not to inject money into projects, said former Finance Secretary Rameshwor Khanal.

“Lawmakers should not be executing such small projects. That  is the job of District Development Committees (DDCs) or Village Development Committees,” said Khanal.

The fund distribution regulation stipulates that lawmakers elected under the first-past-the-post category are entitled to spend upto Rs 1 million for seven selected infrastructure projects, such as road, bridge, school construction. Likewise, 26 nominated MPs and 335 proportional representation category lawmakers can distribute the funds for projects in their preferred districts.

Out of Rs 1 million, the lawmakers can spend 15 percent to meet administrative costs.

The most critical factor of the budget allocation, however, is channelling the fund through local consumer groups (LCGs)—the most corrupt functionary at the local level. So much so that the MoLD decided to scrap them across the country.

“The LCGs are a major source of corruption. With political patronage they do not audit properly,” said an MoLD official.

As each VDC is allocated as much as Rs 3 million a year, giving Rs 1 million for a lawmaker to spend in one constituency that often houses two dozen VDCs would not make much of a difference, argued Dinesh Thapaliya, spokesperson for the MoLD.

Taking exception to many of such expenditures, the Finance Ministry came up with a new set of guidelines that requires the lawmakers to spend money only on tangible projects. This platform has been used to create a political patronage which needs to be reviewed, said a senior MoF official.

But Finance Secretary Yubraj Bhusal maintains that since there is a void at the local level, it is logical to release some funds to the lawmakers. “Lawmakers work through the DDCs. The DDCs and lawmakers both monitor the projects which would leave no room for lapses and irregularities,” he said.

Source: The Kathmandu Post