| Biswo |
Posted
on 01-Aug-01 04:09 AM
Previous governments were happy to cultivate the general notion that 'everybody
is corrupt in Nepal', so that they could be free to do what they were doing. We
saw this trend just until a few months ago, when ProGirija papers , rather than
defending Girija/Chataut, were more training their guns on CIAA chief. They
just wanted to tell us that everybody is dirty in Nepal.Even CIAA chief.
In Sher Bdr Deuba's recent interview in Time (see www.time.com/asia), he
identified ,somewhat correctly, that corruption is the root of a lot of Nepalese
evils that provided hotbed for Maoist expansion. So, it was natural for us to
expect some concrete anti-corruption initiatives from his government.
He did. He tabled the shelved legislations, one re CIAA and another re special
police force. It is kind of ironical,though.After some high profile cases of CIAA,
people from villages also petitioned in CIAA against the local corrupt officers. The
CIAA , hardened up in cash and other means, couldn't reach to all the cases, so
it directly and indirectly asked for 'logistic' (legislative) reinforcement from
government. In such cases, special police under CIAA certainly could make sense.
Alas, government has decided to keep special police force separate. It doesn't sound very good decision. Newspapers are also opposing it in Nepal. I also
hope the government will take concrete steps to create real powerful anti-
corruption body.
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