Saturday, May 26, 2007

3 Layers, 15 States, No Army, 100,000 Bureaucrats Total, Much FDI


Nepalese Civil Service is overstaffed with large crowds of unskilled, unproductive staff at the lower levels. Peons alone are estimated to number 27,000 out of a total of 97,000 Civil Servants (Nti, 1991). Highly qualified and talented candidates are not attracted to the civil service (Joshi, 1989)
[PDF]Wielding the Bureaucracy for Results: Reorienting the Nepalese ...File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
Nepal
. Introduction. THIS PAPER is mainly concerned with analyzing the issues accompanying the reorganization. of the Nepalese bureaucracy and recommending ... unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/EROPA/ARPA-JulDec1997-Uprety.pdf

Current Scenario:
Civil Servants: 100,000
Soldiers: 90,000
Maoist Soldiers: 30,000
Police: 40,000

I would suggest the following.

15 States

I went from three to eight states, now I am going to 15. But in the three and eight state scenarios, there were four layers of government. In the 15 state scenario, there are three layers. So this is a simpler model and hence better.

3 Layers

Federal, state, village/town, that is all we need. We don't need to have districts. Federalism is a more efficient form of government than the unitary form. What that means is the total number of people on state salary in a federal structure should be less than what we have now.

Geographic, Not Ethnic Names To The 15 States

That might make sense.

Federal Level: Bicameral Parliament

100 seats in the upper house, through proportional election. Any party that secures 1% of the votes is a recognized national party and will be state funded. No rules will be made as to what kind of parties can be registered, and what kind can not be registered. As in, it is okay to have a Janajati Party, it is okay to have a Dalit party.

The lower house should have 300 seats out of constituencies of roughly equal population.

State Level: Unicameral Parliament

One seat for every 50,000 people. One constituency for the federal lower house should be two at the state level.

Directly Elected President, Governor, Mayor

The winning candidate must get at least 50% of the votes. In some cases, a second round will have to be held between the two top candidates.

And of course each state will have a judiciary.

Each village and town will have a council, its legislative.

Abolish The Two Armies

This is a tough decision that has to be made. All those 120,000 soldiers will have to be absorbed by the private sector of the economy.

Restructuring The Federal Bureaucracy

Each state will have its own ministries. They better be few in number and they better be small. But you can not have the existing federal ministries and just add on top of that at the state level. Many federal bureaucrats will lose their jobs just like the 120,000 soldiers. They will have to be transitioned into the private sector. They should be provided with help.

Dual Citizenship For The NRNs, FDI-Friendly Policy Regime

Most of the relief that will come to the people will happen in the private sector. We are too preoccupied with state restructuring. At most the state employs 200,000 Nepalis. Nepal is 27 million people. What about the rest of the population?

Here all the government has to do is get out of the way and let the private sector grow the economy. It is sheer stupidity to not allow for dual citizenship. To my mind, the provision for dual citizenship is something that has to be done right away, so NRNs can start investing in the country.

In The News

Cabinet forms commission to investigate terai unrest NepalNews the cabinet also decided to ratify the decision of the eight-party regarding the cancellation of the report presented by constituency delineation commission

UML, Maoists blame Koirala for the deadlock NepalNews During the meeting between chairman Prachanda and Dr Baburam Bhattarai of the Maoists and UML general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal at latter's residence, the leaders concluded that PM Koirala must shoulder all responsibilities for causing deadlock in the peace process and delaying the constituent assembly polls. ...... announcement of republic through the parliament.
Prachanda urges YCL to improve Prachanda has asked them to involve only in popular activities. ..... while their activities like curbing smuggling, road building and urban management were laudable, their actions against government offices and individuals have drawn criticism
NEMA points out pre-requisites for credible polls improvement in the security situation, formulation of all electoral legislations and re-delimitation of the electoral constituencies. Govt to release Rs 120 million to help conflict victims The money will be spent to provide relief as well as rehabilitation facilities to the victims
NC has not developed model of federalism: Sujata her party has not developed a specific model on federalism yet, but work has begun on how Nepal should be after being restructured. ..... three models of governance – centralized, decentralized and distributed.
NC-D president Sher Bahadur Deuba talking to reporters at TIA before his departure for China

No compromise on security, says PM NepalNews Adding to the voices of Madhesi agitators, the general secretary of Unified Marxist Leninist (UML) Madhav Kumar Nepal has asked Home Minister Krishna Sitaula to step down. ..... Sitaula should not have been re-appointed as Home Minister given the demands by Madhesi agitators for his resignation ..... Even a section of MPs within Nepali Congress (NC) have been demanding for Sitaula's resignation.
Nepal demands Sitaula's scalp
YCL meet on to review its activities The meeting began on Tuesday evening after Maoist chairman Prachanda asked the YCL leaders to mend their ways and control unruly activities. Prachanda is the chief coordinator of the organisation. ..... the YCL office in Balaju.
Congress leaders spit venom at YCL
Prachanda to confer with ADB; PM asks him to comply with Bank's condition
IOC cuts petro supply again, nation set to face fuel crisis

Serial blasts in Janakpur NepalNews Cadres of Janatantrik Terai Mukti Morcha (JTMM-Jwala Singh) have exploded crude bombs at around one dozen places in Janakpur city on Tuesday night. Reports say that between 9 and 10 pm, sounds of explosion were heard in bus park, Janaki chowk, campus area, Ladobela, and Pesiya Bazaar. ..... Rajan Mukti, a central member of JTMM-Jwala Singh phoned media outlets owning up the responsibility of blasts in Ladobela and Pesiya Bazaar. According to Nepal Samacharpatra daily, he claimed that the bombs were exploded to protest the visit by UML general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal. Nepal is currently in Janakpur to attend cadres' training programme.
Maoists, NC meet to end deadlock Prachanda demanded release of money allocated for Maoist combatants at a time while Koirala said the government would release the money on a monthly basis. ..... Koirala also informed Prachanda about the government decisions taken yesterday regarding daily allowance to the PLA members and construction of camps for combatants before the monsoon. ...... Prachanda urged Koirala to call an eight-party meeting immediately to sort out the political deadlock and in response, Koirala assured to hold the meeting soon after consulting other leaders in separate meetings.

Koirala, Deuba discuss party unity, political issues NepalNews Deuba is learnt to have asked Koirala to speed up the process for party unification by forming a task force entrusted with full authority. ..... Koirala recently told veteran Congress leader KP Bhattarai that he was ready to accept Deuba as the senior vice president after unification
Eight parties not serious about CA polls: RJP chief
Forest Minister Yadav to ‘expose’ sandalwood smugglers
JMCC to fix second-phase verification date Thursday
Govt declares Bista martyr
We can step down from govt anytime, says Gurung
Peoples’ Consent in Ratification of New Constitution
Each PLA combatant to get Rs 3000 per month Over one billion rupees has already been provided to the Maoist party for the upkeep of 31000 PLA combatants.

Ministerial committee holds emergency meeting on cantonment mngt NepalNews