| Username |
Post |
| kalanidhi |
Posted
on 19-Dec-02 01:14 AM
Friends
Please feel free to add some points regarding Nepal's curruped situation.
Corruption has become a prominent issue in the governance debate. It is identified as a major threat to sound economic and social development.
It manifests itself in various ways - from small bribes given to local officials to obtain a service or to avoid regulations - to the much publicised scandals involving senior politicians and major businesses.
Petty corruption takes place on a smaller level, but nonetheless it's corruption. Grand corruption is the bigger picture type stories that we hear about. All of it has an impact on the way our country has grown and the opportunity for people to receive the service that they rightfully deserve, because this corruption is a leakage of the funds that should be directed to the growth of our community.
There is a very bad perception about corruption in this country, and corruption is also a result of lack of governance. People thinking in terms of short-term self-interest, rather than long-term and in the interest of the country.
Well, I think the general idea or belief is that anybody who's been in power with a lot of power and using that power for his own gains is termed corruption if that's in a nutshell how you put.
We see that in the lack of health around the country, the lack of hospitals, the maintenance of hospitals, the provision of medicine into these hospitals. We see it in the absence of proper buildings for schools in the rural areas, and we see it in the makeup of teacher's salaries that sometimes don't get paid, and for the health aid workers who are out there manning smaller hospitals and smaller aid posts and their inability to be able to access proper medicine and drugs for their communities.
One of the things I see in our country is that justice is unfair and that's one of the things that is really hurting people down at the ground level, the grassroots. One grassroot will steal a piece of bread because he was hungry and he can be sentenced to ten years or five years, but when one politician steals thousands of Rupees, even if he's got so much in his wallet he could go and buy something to feed his stomach, the big fat bull stomach. He's got money in his pocket and so much and he wants more so he stole so much thousands and when he's found they put him on the paper, we see him and the next time we see he's guilty but he never went to prison. The law doesn't feel sorry for the grassroots, but it can feel sorry for the politician. What kind of law is that?
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| kalanidhi |
Posted
on 19-Dec-02 01:15 AM
Conted.......
Really it's not been good for our democracy. What the slush fund has been able to do however is that it has prostituted the role of a member of parliament. So a member of parliament spends 80 per cent of his time going about trying to see how best he can spend this money to buy votes in some instances. In other instances he's simply, he hasn't accounted for it. We don't know what he's done with the money. He probably has used it himself. Now I obviously can't substantiate that statement but there has been allegations of that in the past. But I think the greatest problem is it has exacerbated the dependency syndrome, you know this cargo cult mentality, people wait to receive. It is a manifestation of this inherent assumption that we are always going to be getting money and nowadays of course that is from offshore. But "Yes USA's going to give us money, Japan's going to give us money, European Union's going to give us money", and really it's a dead-end as we're seeing when these donor countries are not coming to the party insofar as their conditionalities are not being met. Well we're sort of hung up in there and we have led ourselves to live way, way beyond our means and we're passing that down to the village communities and it is a very, very dangerous thing, it is very unsustainable.
You know integrity isn't something that you can legislate and impose on anybody, integrity must come from the individual, and if the person doesn't have integrity then they have no place as a leader, and that's the simple truth. I mean when people are going to vote for their leaders the question they should ask is not if they have signed off on the Integrity bill, but if they've lived their life as an honest and hardworking individual who'll bring integrity to their electorate.
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| kalanidhi |
Posted
on 19-Dec-02 02:37 AM
conted......................
It is the deficiency in the system itself which protects white collar criminals and I don't think there is a deliberate connection, meaning the white collar criminals are the people who are working the system, ensuring that the system is weak so that they could benefit from it. But the fact is that the system is not strong because of many other factors. Resources is one of them, but most importantly the people who work in these institutions are not adequately equipped in terms of resources as well as personal skills, expertise to make these systems work properly. Investigations are not done properly, and if they do get to court the people who represent the public to prosecute these people are not well trained. The best lawyers are on the side of the white collar criminals rather than the state and the public, and therefore those inadequacies in the system, in the structures allow the white collar criminals to get away.
Kalanidhi
UCB
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| HariyoNepal |
Posted
on 19-Dec-02 02:07 PM
yeah, corruption is rampen in Nepal. Democracry is used as a tool to get just that. We are in a disadvanage situation. T here is mistrust among people of different caste or tribes. Division is very deep.
Politicians are already talking the worst scenario and that is what makes local people so nervous. Things are never stable and I dont think politicians and others are being supportive to solve the problem.
Politicians are still using democracy as a way to get to the power and not to solve the problem in the long run. Unfortunately, that is the reality and that is not a curse but our way to doing things which brought everyonve into the chaos.
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| Anand Agrawal |
Posted
on 19-Dec-02 02:27 PM
I agree with you Hariyo Nepal...all the way....May be Nepal can learn from some Indian States like Andrapradesh, Kerala, etc.....
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| ruck |
Posted
on 19-Dec-02 08:28 PM
Anand ji,
How about Laloo ji's Bihar learning from Andra and Kerela. What about Jayalalitha? you say she's clean??? I think "Tehelkha" said it all sometime back.... and also how about bollywood films and film stars being financed by the "UNDERWORLD"???
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| safasaja |
Posted
on 20-Dec-02 12:55 AM
Go to Kantipuronline and read Corruption is Culture....whose culture is it anyway????
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| kalanidhi |
Posted
on 20-Dec-02 01:21 AM
The sad part is :
that we have seen that the country economically has not proved to our own people, to ourselves, that we are capable of managing our own nation. Because our health services speak for it - no medicine, no doctors, the infant mortality rate is high, maternal mortality rate is very high, nutrition bad and the school buildings have deteriorated. So people have not really seen the evidence of development.
We are beginning to see that we are incapable of looking after ourselves. We have produced very well-educated people but we have poor leaders.
In the top of that Maoist problem :(
How much we drawn-out , Seems like it is unlimited in spatial extent.
Kalanidhi
UC Berkeley
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| safasaja |
Posted
on 20-Dec-02 07:02 AM
Kalanidhi:
Everything you said is right. Netas are the one who brought us all down. Sadly they are still doing so in the name of democracy.
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