Attention! Nepal Development Forum participants

January 23, 2002
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Kathmandu: Better late than never, a very powerful US authority has hinted the Nepali establishment that this country would do well if it provided good governance and curb the menace of rampant corruption that existed at the very highest political echelons of the nation.

Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State made it abundantly clear to the Nepali authorities that a sizeable chunk of the Nepali malaise that have gripped the country of late would vanish in the thin air should the establishment act as per his advice which is apparently the suggestions of practically all the developed West.

It is in this light that the participants attending the meeting of the Nepal Development Forum scheduled for February 4, next month, should concentrate their attention prior to committing further donations to this country in the name of development.

The conditions put by the friendly international donors must be explicit: perform effectively; provide good governance at the earliest and finally bring stringent laws to take proper care of those leaders, politicians, ministers and bureaucrats who have had amassed wealth illegally during a short span of ten years or so.

The members of the Nepal Development Forum would do well if they talk straight to the nation’s Prime Minister and tell the latter about their new conditions prior to extending millions and millions all in the name of Nepal’s pseudo development.

“‘Ministers, politicians and the bureaucrats have developed but not the nation”‘, lamented an intellectual.

“We need development aid but that should go to the targeted place and group””, added the intellectual.

Reports have it that even at time of the emergency in the nation, a set of ugly faces in the cabinet and in the ministry were busy in finalizing certain deals that solely benefit them. It is for nothing that the UML only recently came out with such a claim and warned Prime Minister Deuba to control such ugly practices.

The attending donor countries could ask the government one blunt question. “Why it is that the men in the government were becoming richer and conversely the nation becoming poorer still with each chunk of development aid pouring into Nepal?

If the NDF participants wish to see Nepal really developed and prosperous they must change their stance this round of their meeting(s) in Kathmandu and Pokhara or else such high-profile meetings will have little impact on the overall deteriorating economic health of this nation.