Nepal

Kathmandu, July 16

The Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration has issued a circular to chief administrative officers of all local levels, directing them not to leave their work stations.

The directive comes in the wake of huge loss of lives and property due to floods, landslides and inundation triggered by torrential rain in various parts of the country.&The MoFAGA requests the chief administrative officers of all local levels not to leave their work stations. Those absent are urged to return immediately to the office and perform their duties within 24 hours,& read the circular issued by the Local Level Employee Administration Section of the ministry.

Search, rescue and relief operations were affected in some local levels due to the absence of concerned chief administrative officers, according to MoFAGA.

The circular, however, did not mention the names of the local levels and the absentee chief administrative officers. But it has urged the absentee chief administrative officers to return to their offices and carry out relief and recovery works without delay. The constitution and the Local Government Operations Act-2017, have clearly stated on the functions, duties and powers of the local levels regarding disaster management.

The local bodies have also been directed to implement the Cabinetdecisions on July 14, regarding the incidents of natural disasters.

As per the decisions, local authorities will have to work to provide relief materials for the disaster victims in their concerned areas, ensure medical treatment of the injured, provide financial assistance to the families who lost their member/s to the disaster, deploy medical teams to prevent the outbreak of communicable diseases in disaster-hit areas and coordinate with the concerned agency for resumption of essential services.

The government has already decided to carry out relief operations thorough one-door system lead by local bodies.

Recovery and reconstruction works in disaster hit areas will start after collection of data on the loss of lives and property, stated the circular.

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Kathmandu, July 16

A parliamentary committee has decided to form a champion group of lawmakers aimed at creating awareness about the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals in the country.

The Sustainable Development and Good Governance Committee of the National Assembly has decided to form the champion group comprising lawmakers from the centre and provinces.

The group will have 14 lawmakers from the centre and five each from seven provinces. The group will have total 49 members, said the Chair of the panel Taradevi Bhatta at a press meet today.Bhatta said the main role of the group would be to raise awareness on the implement of programmes related to SDGs in the country.

A member of the committee, Bimala Rai Paudel said the group will interact with the central government and the National Planning Commission that coordinates with all ministries, and help provinces and local governments to implement the SDGs.

&Those lawmakers of the provinces interested in the SDGs will be members of the group and they will disseminate the message of the SDGs at the provincial and local levels,& said Paudel.

&The lawmakers will ensure that the bills related to SDGs registered by the governments in the centre as well as in provinces will incorporate the spirit of the SDGs before they are passed,& she said.

In 2015, more than 150 world leaders committed to 17 Sustainable Development Goals including ending poverty, inequality and injustice, and addressing the problem of climate change.

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Kathmandu, July 16

Amid the recommendation committeefailure to appoint members for two transitional justice commissions, victims of decade-long Maoist armed conflict have demanded restructuring of the committee.

The committee, which was formed in the last week of March, has been postponing its scheduled meetings time and again. Knowledgeable sources say it is doing nothing but awaiting political consensus on appointment of members and chairpersons of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Commission on Investigation of Enforced Disappeared Persons. The posts have remained vacant since April 14.

Political parties have failed to reach a consensus on the appointments, with dialogue between the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) and the main opposition Nepali Congress coming to a grinding halt. &There have been no dialogues for the past three weeks,& said NC leader Minendra Rijal, who is among leaders actively involved in the talks. &We are always ready to sit for dialogue, but the ruling party seems least bothered.&

On this backdrop, the victims have concluded that the committee has failed to work independently, and that it should be restructured.

The Conflict Victims Common Platform is planning to submit a memorandum to the Minister of Law Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Bhanu Bhakta Dhakal on Thursday to exert pressure on the government.

They will also submit the document to Chairperson of the Parliamentary Law, Justice and Human Rights Committee Krishna Bhakta Pokharel, NCP leaders Subas Chandra Nembang and Barhsa Man Pun, NC leader Ramesh Lekhak, the National Human Rights Commission Chairperson Anup Raj Sharma, Attorney General Agni Kharel and the selection committeeChairperson Om Prakash Mishra. Nembang, Pun and Lekhak, besides Rijal, are also actively involved in the NC-NCP negotiations regarding appointment of members in the TJ bodies.

In the memorandum yet to be submitted, the CVCP has demanded that the process of appointment of TRC, CIEDP members be immediately halted. They have demanded that the appointment process be resumed only after the amendment of the Transitional Justice Act, in line with the Supreme Court verdicts.

They have also demanded that the selection committee be restructured following the act amendment, to form another selection committee that can work independently and transparently to appoint competent members in the commissions.

&The committeefailure to take a decision for more than three months after its formation is enough to infer that it is incompetent and is working at the direction of political parties,& said former CVCP chairperson Suman Adhikari.

In the memorandum, the CVCP has also recommended a procedure for the appointment of members for the commissions. &What we want is a fair selection process, and competent commission members,& said Adhikari. &We are recommending them the correct procedure to select competent persons.&The committeeSpokesperson Sharmila Karki said they were delaying appointment of members to the TJ bodies to ensure that competent members were appointed.

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Kathmandu, July 16

Hundreds of people representing indigenous nationalities, women, Madhesis, Dalits, people with disabilities and people from marginalised sections today staged a protest at Maitighar Mandala, demanding that the vacancy announcement to recruit civil servants for local levels be scrapped pronto.

The Federal Public Service Commission had published a public notice to hire 9,161 staffers at local levels on May 29. Its move was criticised for not following the constitutional provision of proportional inclusion.

Various Tarai-based parties, Province 2 government and right activists had vehemently criticised the advertisement saying that it was against the spirit of the constitution.

Article 227 of the constitution states that matters related to employees of local bodies, village councils and municipalities should be governed by provincial laws.

The FPSC, however, said it published the job advertisement on the basis of Employees Adjustment Act, that gave it the authority to recruit employees until the provincial public service commissions were formed. People staging protest against the FPSCjob advertisement shouted slogans against the government and said that it was acting against the spirit of the constitution and federalism. They also accused the people in power of suppressing indigenous and marginalised communities.

Addressing the protesters at Maitighar, lawmaker from Samajbadi Party-Nepal Rajendra Prasad Shrestha said the government had failed to honour the contribution made by the marginalised and minorities for major political changes in the country.

The agitating people also said FPSC had not allocated enough quotas for all the clusters that qualify for reservation. Prior to FPSCjob advertisement, local bodies across the country had requested it to hire 14,662 employees for them to run their offices. Following the request, the commission had started the process to hire 9,161 employees at local levels. As per the rule, the government has to allocate 45 per cent of total vacant seats for people representing various marginalised groups. Of the 45 per cent seats, 33 per cent should be allocated for women, 27 per cent for indigenous nationalities, 22 per cent for Madhesis, nine per cent for Dalits, five per cent for people with disabilities and four per cent for people from remote areas. As per the law, the total number of seats under reservation quota should have been 4,025, but FPSC allocated only 2,262 seats. Ananda Gupta, a member of Tarai Madesh National Council, said injustice was mainly done to Madhesi people as the FPSC had allocated only 76 seats under Madhesi quota, while it should have been 886.

Activists said quota for the indigenous community was reduced by 53 per cent, quota for Dalits by 92 per cent, quota for people with disabilities by 98 per cent, and quota for people from remote areas were reduced by 99 per cent. Officials of the FPSC, including Chairperson Umesh Mainali and Joint-secretary Kiran Raj Sharma, refused to comment on the issue.

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