On/Off the Record

By P.R. Pradhan

Saurav, a political analyst, in a television interview, remarked that the Maoist leaders have no love for the nation and they are not committed to building the nation, instead, they are destroying the country. A journalist turned political leader, Rabindra Mishra, had a tea meeting with Maoist supremo Pushpakamal Dahal last week. Mishra, after the meeting, revealed that Dahal was not against the institution of monarchy and he had never thought about the removal of the institution. Nevertheless, Dahal’s private secretariat declined the revelation by Mishra during the tea meeting. Mishra thinks that the present constitution is based on the Prachanda path, which has already failed. Therefore, Mishra suggested to rethink about a new system in which all, including the institution of monarchy, can be adjusted. One cannot ensure the political stability and sustainability of the nation under the present political system. According to the latest report, within the two months of the present fiscal year, the government was compelled to take debts worth one trillion rupees. Every month, the government is taking debts worth 50 billion rupees to meet its budget expenditure. If the present trend of the government continues, Nepal will fall into a debt trap shortly. The government is taking debts to run the present expensive political system. Besides, the tax burden on its citizens is also very high. In comparison, within the South Asian countries, the tax burden in Nepal is very high. Excessive taxation will affect individuals’ earnings and savings, which will directly affect their investment capacity. A system is formulated and introduced for the betterment of the citizens and the nation. Leaders are considered to be the persons serving society by spending their own income. In Nepal, politics is a job receiving timely salaries, allowances, and other facilities from the taxpayers’ money, and they behave like the bosses of their own voters. In principle, the constitution talks about socialism, in practice, the people are becoming poorer day by day and the leaders are becoming rich without doing any business. It means the leaders are involved in illegal works, corruption and commission, and also in policy corruption. In conclusion, the present system is going to destroy the nation from all sectors. As the Maoists, under the foreigners’ design, introduced the present constitution, they are solely responsible for destroying the nation. A constitution is the prime law of the nation. However, the law is not being practiced properly. Also, the law is described by the leaders in the interests of the political leadership. Political leaders feel themselves above the law, and the country’s laws are for the common citizens only. Such laws are formulated in the greater interests of those brokers and middlemen. A strong law could control anomalies seen in the cooperatives, one of the three pillars accepted by the constitution. As many political leaders are involved in the misuse of the cooperative funds, the lawmakers are not interested in introducing a strong law. The fact is that the lawmakers and party leaders are working as agents of fraud in society. We need a political system that should be able to function from the nation’s revenue. The nation should have enough funds to invest in the infrastructural sectors so that such infrastructures will start giving returns once they are completed. We are talking about the construction of the Budhigandaki project, but there is no progress on its construction. Many projects of national glory, including the Nijgadh airport, are impending due to the lack of investment funds. As the government needs money to spend in the nonproductive sector, it lacks funds to invest in infrastructural projects. The negative side of the present system is that it has discouraged local industries and encouraged imports of goods from abroad. The government, to meet its revenue goals, has given targets to the customs offices to collect revenue from imports of goods. If the target is not met, the government lacks funds to spend on the general sector of the budget. To avoid such compulsion of the government, it should reduce general sector expenditure so that it should not bear excessive pressure on managing excessive funds. As the present political system has been introduced to manage political workers, it has become expensive, which, the country’s revenue cannot sustain. Therefore, the only way out of the present problem is to scrap the present political system and introduce another non-expensive political system. In doing so, the political leadership should have a Nepali heart.

Source : https://www.peoplesreview.com.np/2024/10/02/leaders-lack-a-nepali-heart/