Kathmandu, Nov. 6:
Political parties in Nepal don’t seem to have learnt from the past experiences in election and have continued with the ‘baseless’ and 'ambitious' plans and commitments in their election manifestoes while copying some of the promises they made in the previous elections but failed to fulfil them.
An election manifesto is a political document that carries socio-economic and development promises of the parties to the people in the country. However, while the political parties that had the opportunities to be in power or ruling coalition so far seemed less concerned to the commitments they had made with people during the election, they have again come up with ‘ambitious’ plans and announcements without any indication about the management of resources needed to deliver those promises.
Large political parties – CPN (UML), Nepali Congress (NC) and CPN (Maoist Centre) – have announced to lead the country on the trajectory of the double-digit economic growth and promised to achieve more than double the current per capita income (PCI).
The UML’s election manifesto written for the upcoming elections of the House of Representative (HoR) and Provincial Assemblies mentions that the size of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country would be Rs. 10 trillion if the party got a majority in the polls and the chance to lead the government. Size of Nepali economy was Rs. 4.8 trillion in the last Fiscal Year 2021/22. The UML has also promised to raise the PCI to US$ 2400.
The NC has said that it would lead the nation to the middle-income country in the next 10 years. It has also promised to resolve the current challenges and make the country ‘prosperous’. For a country to be in the middle-income group, it should have the Gross National Income (GNI) per capita between US$ 4,046 and $12,535. Likewise, the CPN-MC said that it would create foundations to achieve the double-digit growth.
Far-fetched dream
According to the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) – a statistical agency under the National Planning Commission, Nepal’s PCI in 2021/22 is $ 1372 and GNI per capita $ 1381.
It is interesting to note that the PCI and GNI per capita had witnessed a growth of just $ 558 and $ 563 in more than a decade since 2010/11. There was a significant rise in the PCI and GNI per capita in the year after the devastating Gorkha Earthquake 2015, otherwise the growth has remained quite modest except in the last fiscal year when it went up because the CBS rebased the national account statistics from 2000/2001 to 2010/11.
Likewise, the country has never achieved the double-digit growth in the last 11 years while the economy witnessed a negative growth of 0.4 per cent in 2015/16 (during the earthquake) and 2.4 per cent in 2019/20 (during the COVID-19 pandemic). There was a high growth trajectory of above 6 per cent in the consecutive three years after the quake with the highest 8.9 per cent in 2016/17, primarily caused by the post-quake reconstruction. Similarly, 7.6 per cent and 6.7 per cent economic growth rate was achieved in the two years that followed.
Nepal achieved just 5.3 per cent GDP growth in the last fiscal 2021/22 and 4.3 per cent in 2020/21 and the World Bank has recently estimated that the economy would grow only by 5.1 per cent in the current fiscal 2022/23 and 4.9 per cent next year.
The multilateral donor has maintained that the monetary policy normalization and the end of pandemic-era monetary support measures as well as relatively high commodity prices would impact the economic strides in the coming years. But the political parties in the country, including the CPN (Unified Socialist) and the new entrants, have stayed mum about the current economic challenges that the country is facing, and failed to present the possible way out from this quagmire troubling the consumers, businesses and the national economy.
Mum on current challenges
Nepal is currently facing multifaceted challenges, including the external sector pressure with ever-growing trade deficit, partially controlled by the government’s ban on imports of vehicles and other luxury goods, depleting foreign exchange reserves, modestly growing remittances and liquidity crunch that have pushed the bank interest to as high as 16 per cent.
With the central bank of the powerful countries like the Federal Reserves of the USA finding no alternative to hiking the interest rate, Nepal is likely to face further rise in inflation which will certainly impact the economic activities and growth. These issues have not found their place into the election manifestos of the political parties.
In a country that has failed to create stable employment for 50,000 people in a year, political parties have unveiled ambitious plans to create jobs for hundreds of thousands.
The UML’s manifesto tells jobs and self-employment, including at least six-month’s employment, would be created for 500,000 in a year.
Worse still, the country does not have a statistical system to maintain the records of employment and unemployment except those leaving the country for jobs abroad. It also doesn't have the data about the returnee migrant workers, let alone the plans to use the skills they acquired in foreign countries.
The NC’s promise includes the creation of 1.25 million jobs in five years period (about 250,000 jobs in a year) while the MC has said it would employ about 1 million youth. It has also promised to provide training, seed money, loan and technical support to about 2 million youth in the next five years to make them employed and self-employed through the short-term measures.
Election manifestos of the political parties are the evidence that they are not serious about the people’s issues like inflation, poverty and public health, said political analyst, Hari Roka.
According to him, health and education have become dearer in the last three decades since the restoration of democracy but the political parties and the governments were never serious about increasing people’s access to quality education and health services.
Experts also say that the manifestos could be documents that demonstrate poor concerns of the political parties to public issues.
Competition on old-age allowance
All three large parties have promised to increase the allowance for senior citizens. The NC, leader of the current ruling coalition, said it would provide allowance at 65 years of age while the UML, the initiator of such allowance about two and a half decades ago, promised to increase it on the basis of economic growth. The MC, the party elevated to power through the armed conflict, announced to build senior citizen service centres in each local unit and the allowance to the poor, disabled, and senior citizens would be increased on the basis of need.
However, none of them have presented credible means for the management of the resources needed to distribute such allowances and provide support to the youth to train or make them self-employed. For example, the previous government had asked the World Bank to manage funds to create temporary employment under the Prime Minister Employment Programme (PMEP).
Similarly, the parties have also promised to provide free treatment of chronic diseases, provide allowance for sanitary pads, buy health insurance for people and increase the insurance amount to Rs. 1 million. For a country that has Rs. 4.8 trillion economy and has a target to collect Rs. 1.4 trillion revenue this year and has about Rs. 500 billion budget deficit, and is currently covering about one-third of the population under various social security schemes, increasing the allowance or creating new social security schemes could cost dearly.
Airports, again!
Proposed Nijgadh International Airport has got priority in the election document of the parties, except the NC. The latter has proposed a rather pragmatic way to upgrade Biratnagar and Nepalgunj airports as the regional aviation infrastructure and use the unused airports for tourism activities.
But the UML has promised to complete the construction of the mega-infrastructure in Nijgadh within five years. Meanwhile, the recently completed Gautam Buddha International Airport is not getting business, and another international airport in Pokhara is getting ready to take-off.
Likewise, the large parties have announced to attract 2 million to 3 million tourists in the next five years. This is likely an achievable target as the country was geared to welcome about 2 million tourists during the Visit Nepal Year 2020 which was disturbed by the coronavirus pandemic.
The UML has promised to complete the basic hospital in 296 local units in the next two years. The project was announced by the erstwhile government led by UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli. The party has reiterated its previous ambitious plans of operating ship, construct electrified railway and re-operate the Hetaunda-Kathmandu Ropeway.
The NC has also promised to construct primary hospitals with specialist doctors in all municipalities and rural municipalities and hospitals with specialty services in metropolis. It has also said that it would hike the health insurance money to Rs. 1 million.
According to its manifesto, the NC will complete the construction of all national pride projects and raise money for the infrastructure projects like road, energy and airports through the infrastructure bond. Likewise, Mechi-Kali Railway and cross-country railway projects are also included in the NC manifesto.
The UML had led the country for more than three years while the MC and CPN (Unified Socialist) were on board, and the NC has been in power for about 16 months with the support MC and Unified Socialist, among other parties.
Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 7 November 2022.
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