Standing up for what's right

As everyone knows it is the tardiness on the part of the Government in releasing aid that it has still not reached to people who are in desperate need of it. Criticisms are being expressed everywhere with regards the low profile of many politicians and their political parties and of the noticeable inability of the government and the limited capacity to cope with the demands of this enormous disaster. It is widely felt that reconstruction will have to involve much more than merely re-building infrastructure, a major task that will be. There should be a thorough re-consideration of social and economic building before all political priorities. Political priorities for example, recent sanction of proposal by the Finance Minister for the purchase of Luxury Vehicles for the ministers, and at the same time not being able to come to a conclusion of streamlining the government policies for fund mobilisation for earthquake survivors due to political culture clash among different parties. If they want influence in the real world of policymaking then they must roll up their sleeves and face the unpalatable truth and compromise. Any political change will need to recognise not only the needs of people but also their ability to address their own needs in future and re-introduce those local democratic structures that have been lacking for more than a decade. Due to reluctant federalism, the opposition parties are waiting for better bargaining position pointing out failure of the ruling government and for it to become ostracised. There is Entrenchment of the status quo under the guise of reform. They are clearly not thinking about the sufferings of the earthquake survivors. They also lack empathy. The government has not been able to provide any kind of stability due to the frequent changes of government in the last 20 years. The political parties are fragmented into several parties and unless every party gets their hand on it, the release of relief aid is far from possible. It is a weak government and it needs support from international communities to support its own community. There’s not much trust on the government anyway. Even before earthquake, Nepal received billions of annual international aid and most never reached people. Adding to this dimension, the government trying to control international assistance and processes only created contradictory directions than cooperative ones. So various independent organisations created parallel processes to channel aid through other methods, which is not an indication of an appropriate system and longevity cannot thrive in these circumstances. It is the job of the government to take care of the state of affairs and when they fail, we the public have right to point it out. It is a democratically elected government so people and their lives should be a centre of concern and priority but currently there are inconsistencies and terrible things are happening. We need more responsive government at this time of disaster. The earthquake has not only shaken houses and buildings but has impacted lives of people emotionally, mentally and socio-economically. Many countries have had severe catastrophes than ours but ours became the worst nightmare because we had no one to turn to. The writing of constitution was only to discuss about the country and who the next leader in charge would be, but not about solving the difficulties of people. When we found leaders of other nations on televisions with words of condolences and reassurances, and civilians, armies, police forces, NGOs, INGOs and every one working day and night for the relief, and Nepalese living abroad coming together to stand by the earthquake survivors, our leaders were nowhere to be seen and now they are everywhere in media preaching false hope to explain their responsibilities are over. Apparently, they lack self-confidence. The country has been long standing on a baseless rant of ‘New Nepal’ which deeply hides its conspiracy leading to major confusion the proof of which is evident and felt by people but cannot do anything about it. As much as we love our country and its dignity, we hate our politicians for the pandemonium they have turned our country into and correction is vital sooner rather than later. The current politics has purely deprived the rights of citizens to participate in the development and decision making process. Re-constructing should be localised and participation of people elected local representative in each ward and village be made compulsory rather than a rushed approach of the re-construction, which is again a challenge for the government and it is most likely they are bound to fail here too. If this does not happen, there will be sense of dependency among people in society, and it creates inequality too. Rich will become richer and poor will become poorer. Re-construction is not only about infrastructure, it is also about social development and restoring trust, hope and faith of people and securing sources of income for them so they are able to rely on local resources and that skilled people and youth do not flee abroad in search of merely living expenses (the statistics says more than half of the population already depend on the income from its family working abroad), if this continues, the situation can only deteriorate in the next 10-20 years. This phase of re-constructing should be taken as an opportunity to re-build by correcting basic rules and laws that governs the bureaucracy making it uber-slow to response and action. The major drawback is that our country doesn’t give authority to local councils of each village and ward so they know exactly what the requirements are. Corruption has ruled over politics. Cursing, leg pulling is felt everywhere. There should be forging of proper long term strategies to speed up the pace of restoration and when something is not going right, rectification should be voiced and proposed and criticism be taken for improvement by the government and not be defended/backfired in support of what is morally wrong. The aid cannot replace human lives and the scale of destruction it has done but proper utilisation of funds received can minimize the impact. All sensible lawmakers, government officials, diplomats and visionaries have raised concerns through reputed journals like Wallstreet, New York Times and local newspapers about the misuse of funds which is obvious. The reason behind Nepal remaining poor is not because it does not have money, but because there hasn’t been proper mobilisation of funds. There are reports claiming the unsuccessful deployment of budgeted expenses allocated each year for the development of the country itself, which shows the government’s lack of competency for which it needs real assistance. For international aids, there are certain procedures to follow and are bound by terms and conditions but the government is not adept to fulfil them hence they remain forgotten as time passes by and they never reach to people. There's an inevitable chance of the deployment of funds and restoration process being lost in the whirlpool of political populism as days, weeks and months pass by. The government needs to work exclusively for the people and the country and win back trust it has lost long time ago. Public has forgiven the politicians many times in the past and it will not forgive if they fail to keep up with their responsibilities this time. And if we remain quiet now, we would be completely losing our right to moan later.