12/12/2017 Political Neutrality of Administration in Nepal

Dev Raj Dahal

Head, FES Nepal Office

The executive function of the government in Nepal is vested with the King, (now no monarchy), in the
Council of Ministers, which exercise this power with the assistance of civil servants. Civil servants
largely depend on tax payers money and are responsible for the smooth flow of goods and services to
the people. They exercise their delegated authority, Adhikar Pratayojan, in a chain of top -down
hierarchy. Junior officials, therefore, do not feel strong enough to withstand pressures from the Aadesh,
command of ministers, as there is no clear division of responsibilities. The chain of command is broken
and civil servants are predisposed to shift accountability to the higher authorities and use the power of
the state. In each change of government, which has happened so frequently, Civil Service Acts and
Regulations continue to be bypassed while transferring and deputing civil servants. This has injected a
sort of crisis of confidence among them resulting in increasing in discipline. Increasing service
accountability, efficiency and neutrality in their functioning is, therefore, necessary to foster sustainable
development.

Public accountability calls for a balance between the stated objectives and services rendered to the
public, as well as optimal use of the scarce public resources. Two facts, however, complicate the system
of accountability in Nepal: the legacy of a feudal power system of the country and its recent transition
from a centrally controlled political economy to a liberalized one, which produces all types of
possibilities for officials to demand bribes from the business elite and citizens because their salaries are
far too low to keep life going. Economic insecurity at the lower rungs of the civil services ladder hits
them hard making it difficult for them to withstand pressure from above and succumb to temptations
towards undesirable political and economic attraction. The legacy of feudalism has also fostered a
system of chakari appeasing boss over performing their responsibilities. Both the trends discourage
the system of motivation and esprit de corps.

De linking the civil servants from partisan politics is essential to enhance the image and credibility.
Yet, the dilemma is that it lacks demonstrated ethical commitment to influence public policy, enforce
laws and gear efforts for change. This makes the political neutrality of bureaucracy difficult to maintain.
First, a system is developing in which higher administrative positions are filled through political
appointments and therefore, government offices have been managed with partisan interest rather than
the general interest of citizens. Second, the motivation underlying politicization lies in enhancing ones
own career, transfer in gainful posts and grabbing other opportunities. The political recruitment of A few
Manchhe (cronies) in government jobs has challenged the jurisdiction of the Public Service Commission
(PSC) and undermined its constitutional prerogatives of ensuring political neutrality.

Administrative Culture:

The tendency of sharing the spoils of political patronage is the legacy of the authoritarian-bureaucratic
politics of the Panchayat Regime in which public administration largely represented the societys
patrimonial structures rather than the interest of people. Power struggles between the government and
the opposition have increasingly politicized them and restrained their efficacy form being directed
towards democratic governance and development.

Yet, the polarization of civil servants into a Civil Service Association and a Civil Service Organization,
along NC and UML lines, receptively, is a post- democracy product. They have even struck twice: nine
days during the interim government and 58 days during the NC government had paralyzed the entire
administration. The polarized administrative culture they fostered continues to plague the
administration.

Second, the bureaucracy has reflected a fusion of the state and business enterprises thus resulting in a
dualistic separation of jurisdiction within the administration: while the urban bureaucratic elite have a
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greater autonomy relative to the industrial establishment, the rural bureaucratic elite are being
subordinated to local power structure-making them less autonomous vis--vis the society. Third, the
industrial leadership is more monopoly oriented than it is innovative and risk-taking. This is why the
country is left in the international backwaters. Former secretary Shyam P. Adhikari notices that there is
virtual absence of bureaucratic neutrality owing to a crisis to a crisis of confidence, crisis of
competence, lack of cooperation,. A culture has thus fostered that doesnt entitle civil servants to see
beyond their self interests.

The techniques used for political intervention are appointment of persons without advertisement of the
vacancy and competitive examination, regular addition of the tenure of the temporary job holders, over
staffing, manipulation in the evaluation and nullification of examinations results etc. As a result, the
piles of administrative irregularities are swelling. The parliamentary State Affairs committee in its
recent report has clearly indicated about the lack of command, control and direction in all the layers of
bureaucracy, drawbacks in procedures, and decay in fairness and uncertainty in functioning thus
undermining governments ability to govern. This does not mean that the Nepalese state is over-
burdened; for the share of public sector output in Gross Domestic product (GDP) is just about 10
percent. The fact is Nepalese civil servant are involved in a number of unofficial jobs at the same time
because they cannot live on what they are paid. Their inefficiencies threaten the public service and the
goals of poverty alleviation and sustainable development set by the state. Good governance entails a
legitimate role for the state for fulfilling essential human needs and enlarging the safety-net for the
poor and powerless.

The public image of Nepalese civil service portrays bloated offices manned by especially under-qualified
and insufficiently experienced persons, under utilization of existing personnel, absenteeism, dearth of
motivation, in competence, red-tape, inflexibility in following the rules, ideological biases, delay and
snobbishness. As politics of patronage became institutionalized, many regulations governing conflicts of
interests in public service have become visible, thus posing difficulty in reforming the public service to
make them accountable to the public interest. There are a number of reasons for this. First, despite
tremendous growth in the bureaucracy, government officials are finding it difficult to hold their job in
high esteem. Second, symptoms of institutional decay have occurred in which public officials
subordinate their institutional authority to self-interest. Third, there has been an increase in the atrophy
of their morale and the civic responsibility to serve the people. And, finally, de motivation of civil
servants has consequently led to a breakdown in government performance.

In order to make the administrative system more responsive to the democratic norms and standards, a
High-Level Administrative Reforms commission (Arc) was set up in October 1991 under the
chairmanship of the then Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala. The Commission submitted its Report
within six months with many recommendations such as reform of the personnel management system,
devolution of power to local government institutions, reforms in public enterprises to the civil service
training system. It adopted a systems approach and suggested the government to adopt measures to
reorganize restructure and modify the bureaucracy in tune with democratic development.

The recommendations of the ARC Report were approved by the government and an Administrative
Reform Monitoring Committee (ARMC) was set up in the office of the Prime Minister with a three-year
mandate to monitor the execution of the provisions of the Report effectively. Additionally, to help carry
out the functions of ARMC, a ministerial committee known as Administrative Reform Mobilization
Committee was formed under the coordination of the Minister of General Administration, with the
Minister of Local Development and Minister of Finance as its members. The ARMC was, however,
dissolved by the UML government and its functions were shifted to the Ministry of General
Administration. Thus, the administrative reform process was terminated.

In 1993, a Civil Service Act and Civil Service Regulations were passed to professionalize the
bureaucracy according to the needs of multi-party democracy. The new Regulations made it compulsory

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for the civil servants to retire from service without prior notice, either on the completion of 30 years of
service or 58 years of age. This compelled the layoff of 19,345 civil servants from their jobs which was
filled either with acting officials or persons appointed on a contractual basis. A provision to force the
retirement of civil servants upon 20 years of service was introduced with the motive of reinventing the
government advised by important donor agencies. This deliberately set limit on the scope of
government by means of de-bureaucratization. The move was also made to reorganize the government
organizations in tune with the changed context, and finally, it wanted to achieve functional integration
between the line departments and regional offices. The forced retirement after 20 years of service,
however, turned controversial and the government could not justify its rationale before the court.

Ironically, despite the recommendations of the ARC to reduce ministries, the government beefed them
up. The weakness of administration has also been highlighted by the High-Level Decentralization
Commission formed under the then Prime Minister in 1996. They were in the past execution practices,
such as undefined jurisdiction of local self-government, overlapping laws, deficiency of institutional
culture, lack of political will, resource scarcity, absence of mechanism to enforce civic accountability
among the elected bodies and government officials, dearth of a planned development process etc. To be
concluded: Ed.

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