Shame, shame

We remember writing at least a couple of editorials on our ministers’ unproductive domestic trips followed by reckless reimbursement claims but that we are writing one again is a pointer that the repeated attempts of the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers (PMO) to put a full stop to this shameful practice has so far gone to waste. It also unfortunately speaks a lot about the quality of people occupying such responsible posts.



Just less than a fortnight earlier, the PMO had made public the names of ministers who had tried to claim money from the state coffers for expenses incurred during their personal and political trips but that too hardly seems to have worked as a deterrent. Local Development Minister Purna Kumar Sherma, Land Reforms and Management Minister Damber Shrestha, Health Minister Umakanta Chaudhary, Industry Ministry Mahendra Prasad Yadav, Minister Without Portfolio Laxman Lal Karna, Youth and Sports Minister Ganesh Tiwari Nepali, State Minister for Health Khadka Bahadur Basyal Sarki and State Minister for General Administration Jeet Bahadur Darjee Gautam have again submitted bills at the PMO even after their previous trips and expense details were publicly exposed.



Many of our ministers are far from the epitome of honesty and integrity that they are expected to be. However, what is hard to digest is that they refuse from correcting themselves despite the PMO’s rigorous attempts. Our ministers have been found to claim money even for trips that they undertake to their constituencies with a political agenda or for personal reasons. Some have even been found to shamelessly fake bills. Perhaps, this is an indication that there needs to be a stricter mechanism in place. Taxpayers do not pay money so that our ministers and lawmakers can squander it. They do it so that they can, among other things, have uninterrupted supply of power and water and travel on roads without potholes. But those are the very things that we do not have while our ministers continue to display such nonsensical behavior.



People at the top are expected to lead by example. But that is where the rot is at present. Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal must do whatever it takes to correct that. The fact that his attempts so far has not produced much of a difference means that there is something wrong in the process. That has to be identified and the practice curtailed. For a poor country like ours, any successful attempt to plug leakages of money from the state coffers means a lot.

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Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame on Nepal