Lalitpur, Mar. 21
"Should we still make rounds of
Singhadurbar with cans of ghee?" asked Man Bahadur Dangi, chairman of
Triveni Gaunpalika in Salyan district.
Still the culture of mobilising budget on
the basis of access is intact, he expressed frustration over the slow progress
in institutionalisation of federal system in Nepal.
Dangi is one of the many representatives
participating in a two-day coordination meeting on 'plan formulation,
implementation and reporting of governments in federal structure' that kicked
off in Lalitpur on Monday.
Vice chairperson of Gajuri Rural
Municipality of Dhading district Sita Dhungana said that capacity of local
bodies should be enhanced in terms of capital budget mobilisation.
According to her, contractors have invested
the mobilisation cost of the projects in real estates and left the projects
incomplete while some of them could not begin at all. Contractors get 20 per
cent of the total project's budget to begin construction work as per the law.
Representatives of various local bodies
said that frequent changes of administrative officers in the local bodies had
also serious repercussion in the development works and other programmes.
Speaking at the meeting organised by
Provincial Policy and Planning Commission of Bagmati Province and managed by
National Association of Rural Municipalities in Nepal (NARMIN), they said that
the public procurement law should be simplified and there should be a provision
of stern action against the contractors that don't complete their job in the
prescribed time.
Fragmented development
Provincial policy and planning commissions
(PPCs) have said that the fragmented development activities and distributive
budget planning have become the main culture among the local bodies.
"Since the planning bodies are not
supported with adequate resources, they could not exhibit effective performance,"
they said.
Dr. Krishna Raj Pant, vice chairman of the PPC
of Bagmati Province, said that all provinces should move ahead with the project
planning and implementation through the project banks so that there could be
better preparedness.
"We are suggesting the provincial
government not to invest in the projects smaller than Rs. 5 million and have
strategic importance," he said.
Dr. Pant stressed on integrated planning
system, and enhanced and effective cooperation among the three levels of
governments in policy and programme formulation as well as implementation.
According to him, monitoring of development
and programmes is limited to just observation, and it couldn't be made
result-oriented.
Likewise, vice chairman of Province Policy
and Planning Commission of Madhes Province Dr. Bhogendra Jha said that there
was no discipline to maintain good governance in any level of government.
"Recurrent expenditure of provinces can be brought down by at least 40 per
cent," he said.
Failure of the governments
However, Chairman of District Coordination
Committee (DCC) Nawaraj Gelal said that it were the governments that failed to
implement the development projects. "There is no policy constraint in
federal system but implementing stakeholders couldn't perform as per the expectation,"
he said.
Purushottam Nepal, Executive Chairman of
the Institute of Local Governance Studies (INLOGOS), said that mobilisation of
internal resources has been enhanced and public concerns and scrutiny in local
development activities and policy formulation have increased.
"Local bodies did not get the budget
ceiling in time nor received the budget as per commitment. Budget ceiling was
far from reality which caused programmes failures in various local
bodies," he said.
According to him, institutional capacity of
local bodies is poor and no effort was made to enhance their capability in the
past five years from any stakeholders including the federal government.
"Most of the political parties adapted
the national election manifesto to the local body needs which largely ignored
the local needs and realities. More sensitivity in the part of political
parties is needed," said Nepal.
Balananda Sharma, chairperson of the
National Natural Resource and Fiscal Commission, said that the country is yet
to fully adapt the spirit of federalism.
Local representatives said that the federal
government should increase the equilisation grant and gradually reduce the
conditional grant to the local bodies.
Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 22 March 2022.
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