-Pushpa Raj Pradhan

Chief Editor, The People’s Review weekly, Nepal

A powerful prime minister is heading the government and there are ministers, provincial chiefs and seven provincial governments.

Moreover, there are powerful local bodies. Such a big lot of people’s representatives is enough to work for the nation and people. Unfortunately, they all are reluctant to work for the country and people.

Farmers are demanding fertilizer and they are unable to get it. This is not a problem of a particular year but it repeats every year. Farmers are compelled to sell their paddy to brokers at a lower price than the price ceiling set by the government.

The concerned ministry has blamed the finance ministry for not releasing funds so that it was unable to buy paddy from the farmers. The government will later procure paddy from the brokers by paying a higher price. There is a strong setting between the brokers and the government authorities including the ministers. In this way, our farmers are being exploited from all sides and foreign puppet political leaders have encouraged businessmen to import even agricultural products including vegetables from India.

Since Nepal adopted multiparty democracy in 1990, Nepal’s industrialization process has been derailed. In the name of economic liberalization, local industrialists and government-run industries were discouraged by making our large labor force jobless.

As the government encouraged imports and started to enjoy the revenue received through the customs duty on imported goods, industrialists became traders importing foreign goods and the nation became a consumer country.

Today, the reality is that all the youths are in a rush to go abroad for dirty, difficult and dangerous jobs.

The fact is that when thieves and corrupt people become people’s representatives, the nation will suffer in such a way.

Today, the nation’s economy is under the import trap. The nation’s trade deficit is continuously increasing and it has reached an alarming stage. The gap between exports and imports has been continuously widening. Remittance sent by Nepali labors working in the Gulf countries has become the main source of earning foreign currency.

When the foreign currency reserve was declined, the government announced a ban on imports of some luxury vehicles and foreign liquors, among other items. When such a ban reduced the revenue collection of the government, it was compelled to lift the import ban on such items. We can understand, the government cannot collect targeted revenue if it will discourage imports.
Nepali economics is based on the customs revenue received from imported goods not from the excise duty on local production or exports of Nepali productions. If we continue to travel towards a negative direction, it is impossible to think about the nation’s economic prosperity.

Our foreign puppet political leaders, under the instruction of the foreign powers, have imposed an expensive political system which they prefer to say “loktantra” that, in fact, has become synonymous with “loot-tantra”.

We have to feed such a large number of the “people’s representatives” that the government is collecting tax from every individual.

The tax amount collected by the government is higher than 35 per cent. In socialism, tax is collected from the citizen against the service provided to the citizens. Perhaps, Nepal is a country where the citizens pay taxes at every step they walk but they get nothing from the government.

In another word, nothing is free for the people but everything is free for those who belong to the ruling class.

In Nepal, the prime minister and home minister’s wives get a chance to become a member of parliament from the proportional representative quota allotted for deprived but capable people. In Nepal, the party chair is a dictator and other workers are no more than slaves. Since the dawn of the multiparty democracy and later “loot-tantra” a small group of the political clan has become multi-billionaires and the rest of the people are struggling for their two-time meals.

Moreover, the country has been economically ruined and it is on the path to becoming a failed nation.

Just a question to our Nepali citizens for how long to tolerate such an atrocity? If we don’t revolt against the present perversion, the political loot will continue further and we should be ready to pay more tax to feed the looters.

If we wish to see Nepal as a prosperous nation, we must abandon the present political system by introducing a system based on the rule of law and we must say goodbye to the present-day political leaders.

# Text courtesy: The People’s Review weekly dated December 14, 2022: Ed. Upadhyaya.