Clever government workers have taken benefits from the naivety of people’s representatives in Saipal Rural Municipality of Bajhang. In the lack of information on the law, rules and policies and procedures, they easily believe what they are told.

Basanta Pratap Singh: Centre for Investigative Journalism-Nepal 

Nine months ago, people’s representatives at Saipal Rural Municipality in Bajhang including chairman Rajendra Dhami filed a complaint that the staff had misappropriated the budget of the local government. They charged that acting chief administrative officer Radhakrishna Joshi and accountant Gajadhar Sarki had embezzled more than Rs 1.8 million.

Joshi and Sarki cashed six cheques from the financial comptroller’s office supposed to be deposited to the rural municipality’s account and saved the amount in the accounts of theirs and their relatives. Chairman Dhami came to know only later that the employees had drawn the local government’s money without his knowledge. The secret was revealed only after two auditors checked the municipal accounts. “The two had taken out the money clandestinely. I was surprised to find them to have submitted bills for goods not purchased for the office,” said Dhami.

After the revelation of them embezzling the funds, Joshi and Sarki went out of contact for a few days. However, they had to give back the amount due to reporting of their corruption by the people’s representatives. After the District Administration Office threatened them with action, Joshi and Karki submitted goods worth Rs 1.2 million and deposited the remaining money to the municipal account. The DAO, however, spared them punishment in the crime.

Joshi became the acting chief administrative officer of Saipal Rural Municipality after the local level elections. Earlier, he was a deputy officer (Nayab Subba) at Talkot RM in Bajhang. Following Ashok Nepali’s deputation as the chief administrative officer two months ago, Joshi was transferred to the store section of Saipal.

However, some people’s representatives put pressure on Chairman Dhami not to entrust him with the store responsibility charging him with misappropriating the budget. He was then assigned the role of Ward No 4 secretary. After Ashok Nepali’s transfer, Joshi is the officiating chief administrative officer again. “This man’s not good. He’ll get us in trouble too. I’ve been to the ministry three times asking for another chief administrator by transferring him,” Chairman Rajendra Dhami said.

Towards the end of the earlier fiscal year, cadres of the radical communist party led by Netra Bikram Chand had smeared the face of Joshi on charges including of misappropriating the municipal money, and embezzling money of Talkot rural municipality. Joshi, who is still in Saipal, says: “I have not embezzled funds. Problems were created due to not spending the budget the way it should have been.”

Employees have fooled the people’s representatives of Saipal several times. Acting chief Radhakrishna Joshi behaved strangely with Ward 1 Chairman Gopal Bohara last year for enquiring about Saipal’s budget. While Joshi refused to show the budget allocated to the ward, he warned Bohara not to make demands going against the rule again saying that “only the spokesperson has the authority to have a look at all the accounts of the rural municipality”.

Chairman Bohara said, “We’re uneducated so don’t know about legal matters. We kept quiet assuming that the law may have provisioned so.” Radhakrishna, on the other hand, argues: “We carry out four-monthly assessments and pass [agenda] from the village assembly. All have information about the municipal transactions.”

The irregularity in Saipal has been so severe that employees misbehave with elected officials when they enquire about suspected embezzlement of funds. “We’re helpless since the people’s representatives are ignored whey we ask questions saying that our query is not within our jurisdiction,” said Bohara.

In the rural municipality, employees rule the roost when it comes to appointing staff on contract basis and making payments. Executive member Asauji Bohara says that the employees have their ways as the office bearers are unaware of the work procedure and functioning of the ward and the local unit. “We don’t know anything. We believe everything,” said Asauji.

While recruiting staff at Saipal, people favoured by the employees are preferred. Consumer committee members are also those close to the officials. When the consumer committee chairperson is liked by staff, s/he gets payment even if the works are incomplete. Otherwise, payment is denied even after the work is over.

Uneducated people’s representatives

Saipal Rural Municipality has 27 people’s representatives. Among them only the chairperson and vice-chairperson have got the school education. While others are literate, 15 members can hardly write their name. Many of them have difficulties reading the Nepali alphabets. Many stakeholders believe that several employees have taken benefits from this situation. After getting the School Leaving Certificate in 1999, Dhami took up sheep rearing. Considering himself as just “literate”, Dhami says: “After SLC, I carried on with sheep rearing for 17 to 18 years. I lost my school knowledge in the process. After getting the responsibility, I’m learning again.”

All the five ward chairpersons of Saipal are only literate. This has affected the functioning of the local government. Two years since the local elections, many office bearers don’t even know how many times the executive meets within a month. Such meetings are held thrice a month.

The village executive has 13 members. Eight of them were found to be unaware of the meetings. Two members said the meeting takes place only once a month while two said the meetings are bimonthly. “We have no idea. When invited, we attend the meeting, listen to our leader and return,” said Dhansari Bohara, an executive council member.

All the members except the chairperson and vice-chairperson had no information about the function and procedure of the executive meeting either. All of them believed that the role of the executive was to allocate projects. All the executive members have not been briefed on their duties, responsibilities and authority. Most of the elected officials believe that their responsibility is to do the works assigned by the chairperson, vice-chairperson and the chief administrative officer.

What’s worse, Chairperson Dhami was also unable to clearly say about the executive meeting procedure. Nor could the vice-chairperson do that. According to Dhami, the executive body had passed 13 work procedures in the past year and this year while vice-chairperson Kalpana Bohara put the number at 14. On the other hand, the chief administrative officer Radhakrishna Joshi said 18 working procedures had been passed so far.

The rural municipality chair and vice-chair could not list the components of the working procedures either. Dhami says that the employees know about them better. “We don’t know everything. Should we work for the rural municipality or go on remembering such things?” he asked.

The Local Government Operation Act-2017 states a seven-phase process to be followed by the local level to select projects. These include prior preparations for the budget, estimation of resources and determining the budget ceiling, and collection of projects and programmes from settlements and toles.

The law has also determined the procedures for scheme selection and prioritization in wards, budget and programme formulation, approval of the budget and programme from the municipal council, and approval of the budget and programmes from the village/town assembly. Then only begins the project implementation process.

Sadly, this does not apply to Saipal Rural Municipality. The ward chairperson allocates projects as s/he pleases. They execute a project by appointing their favourites as the consumer committee chair. “We set up projects where they are necessary and assign the task to one who can work,” Ward 4 Chairman Jaya Singh Rokaya said. According to him, nobody has taught the people’s representatives about project selection.

From the Rs 120 million Saipal annual budget, Rs 10 million was divided equally among the five ward chairpersons. Chairperson Dhami and executive chief Joshi have distributed the remaining funds as they please. Ashok Nepali, former administrative officer of Saipal RM, says the knowledge, qualification and awareness level of the people’s representatives in Saipal is “pitiable”. “In meetings, ward chairpersons speak to demand more budget for their villages. Nobody speaks about any other subject.

They quietly sign where they are shown,” says Nepali.Ward 5 Chairman Dhananjaya Bohara says he has no idea about the seven stages of project selection. He added that he would only distribute as he deems necessary the small fund received at the ward office. “We distribute the projects of our share. Bigger projects depend on the discretion of the chairman and officer,” said Bohara.

Saipal is a backward community in terms of education and awareness. Given their condition involving the lack of educational qualification, elected officials are not only shy at meetings but they are also afraid to talk to employees. “They are so gullible that a malevolent staffer can easily deceive them as they believe the employees even when they speak falsehood,” Nepali added.