The 500,000 people displaced from their homes in the Great Earthquake continue to struggle. As the heavens have opened up this monsoon, their makeshift tents are proving to be poor shelters. The roofs leak, the mud floors are flooded. They don't have food to last beyond a couple of months. Without timely intervention, there could be severe long-term repercussions for victim families. The government of Sushil Koirala could not care less. It's been over a month since the prime minister announced the formation of an all-powerful Reconstruction Authority at the international conference of donors in Kathmandu. But its officials, including the CEO, are, inexplicably, still to be appointed. This delay has added to the suspicions of the donors who had together pledged (we were told) around US $4.4 billion for long-term reconstruction and rebuilding. Most of their money was supposed to be spent through the authority. In addition, Rs 740 million was announced for reconstruction works in this year's budget, to go through the same channel. The idea was that the authority, with a mandate of five years, would be able to fast-track reconstruction efforts, for instance through its right to acquire land and demolish buildings as and when it saw fit.Apparently Nepali Congress and CPN-UML are still divided over who should head it. But this is a poor excuse. The post of its CEO, the prime minister had assured us, would be settled on the basis of merit. And it would be settled soon, he had promised at the donor conference. But more than a month later, we learn that there has been no homework on the authority. The prime minister, who has been given the sole authority to make these appointments, deserves the bulk of the blame. By any measure, Sushil Koirala has been a weak prime minister. On virtually all important policy matters, it's his junior ministers who are calling the shots. But Koirala got the benefit of doubt because of his clean image and his reputation as a conciliator. This, it was felt, was what the polarized polity of Nepal most needed. But in his one-and-a-half years in office, he has neither been able to win the confidence of opposition lawmakers nor to push ahead with the constitutional process on his own—and now his dilly-dallying over the vital appointments.
Koirala must learn to assert his authority as prime minister. It's about time. Even if there were differences over the appointments with the UML, it is hard to believe a middle-way solution could not have been found after a month's deliberations. The hard reality is that Koirala and his cabinet members forgot the Great Earthquake and the widespread suffering it caused as soon as the world's attention turned elsewhere. It is also depressing that such an important issue has been made a victim of the kind of dirty horse-trading between Congress and UML that characterized the post-1990 Nepali polity. So, again, to regain his lost credibility, PM Koirala must make these crucial appointments without any further delay, even if it means alienating some in his junior coalition party. Thousands of lives are on the line.
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