LOGIN DASHBOARD

    Features

    5 MIN READ

    MPs pressured into returning their Dashain allowances

    The Record, October 19, 2020, Kathmandu

    MPs pressured into returning their Dashain allowances

      Share this article

    The earlier decision to provide festival perks to lawmakers—even as the pandemic continues to wreak havoc on the general populace—has been widely panned

    (The Record)

    Under enormous pressure from the general public, Members of Parliament (MPs) have started to return the Dashain allowances that were distributed to them and to the members of their secretariat. They began returning the money after lawmakers from both the ruling and main opposition parties were widely criticized for pocketing Dashain allowances at a time when the entire country is facing the worst economic crisis, owing to the coronavirus pandemic. 

     Earlier, the Parliament Secretariat had given NRs 64,070 to each member of the federal parliament. But because the move drew criticism from all quarters--especially with patients across Nepal not having access to  treatment and with poor people dying of hunger--the lawmakers announced that they would return their allowance. 

     On Monday, a parliamentary meeting of the Nepali Congress (NC), the main opposition party, decided to deposit a total of NRs 43,20,810 distributed as allowance to its lawmakers into the Covid-19 Fund established by the government. A few ruling lawmakers--namely, Gokarna Bista, Narayan Kaji Shrestha, and Bhim Rawal--have also announced that they will return their Dashain allowance.  

    After the public had got wind of the handout, they started pestering the MPs to return the money. And the NC then called the decision to distribute festival allowance an “inappropriate” and “irrelevant” move. That salvo fired by the NC at the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) put pressure on PM KP Sharma Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal to urge their party’s lawmakers to return their Dashain allowance as well. The NCP’s MPs eventually decided to deposit their allowances into the Covid-19 fund as well.

     The handing out of the allowances has made for exceedingly bad optics. With the coronavirus crisis deepening every day, Nepal’s poor and marginalized have been struggling to make ends meet. Every day, hundreds of people queue up at Kathmandu’s Tudikhel to get free food. Because their sources of income have already dried up, they gather at the grounds every morning and evening, take the food distributed by charity organizations, and return home worrying about whether they will get food again the next day. For more than four months now, this is how daily wage earners and their families have been staving off hunger. 

     Some return home with food for their family, while others bring their family members along with them. Over the last few weeks, that flow of people trudging to Tundikhel has decreased somewhat because most daily wage workers have returned to their hometowns--because they’ve given up all hope of riding out this crisis in the capital. And still hundreds of people continue to line up at Tundikhel, at the premises of Pashupatinath Temple, and at localities like Lazimpat--where volunteers are providing food. 

     It’s not just those on the margins who are struggling. Yet, even as Covid case numbers continue to rise, the government has announced that it will bear the testing and treatment expenses of only the marginalized and the poor who cannot afford medicine. And according to doctors, frontline health workers and nurses are in deep despair because the government has deprived them of their allowances, despite the government’s promises.

     “Providing Dashain allowances for lawmakers is not a wise move at a time when frontline doctors are demotivated,” said Dr Rabindra Pandey, a public health expert. 

     If anything, the government should be looking out for them in this time of national health crisis. The virus has continued to spread unchecked in Nepal, a country whose dismal health infrastructure cannot cater to its 30 million people. As of Monday, Nepal had racked up 136,036 Covid-positive cases. Likewise, 282 corona patients are in Intensive Care Units, and 63 are on ventilators. Because the country does not have adequate isolation wards, the number of corona patients receiving treatment at home is higher than those receiving treatment in institutional isolation or at the hospital. 

    According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 13,851 tested people are in isolation, whereas the number of corona patients staying home stands at 26,927. 

     Due to the lack of ICU and ventilators, some corona patients have died in home isolation while others have died on their way to hospital. And at least 500 of Nepal’s total of 1,500 doctors and 800 of its 50,000 staff nurses and health workers have been infected by the virus. 

     It was against this backdrop that the country’s politicians (already in the crosshairs for failing to control the pandemic) made the earlier decision to provide Dashain allowances to MPs--instead of channeling those funds into the health sector. Legally, there is no provision for distributing allowances for members of the federal and provincial assemblies and to the office bearers of local bodies and those appointed as their personal secretaries. 

     According to former lawmakers, the Parliament Secretariat used to earlier provide 13 months’ salary a year, even though there was no clear mention in the law regarding Dashain allowances. But in 2001, the Supreme Court ordered the government to formulate a law if Dashain allowances were to be distributed to MPs and ordered lawmakers to return their illegally gotten allowances.  

    Owing to that apex court verdict, the lawmakers of the time had returned their allowances to the state coffers. And although the parliament never formulated the law, the issue of Dashain allowances made it to parliament when ruling lawmaker Bina Devi Pokharel broached the topic last year with the then Finance Minister Yuba Raj Khatiwada. Subsequently, the then Speaker, Krishna Bahadur Mahara, decided to make provisions for the MPs’ allowances. 

    Currently, there are 275 elected seats in the House of Representatives, 550 seats in the Provincial Assembly, 59 Upper House members, and over 3,500 representatives from 753 local units. Although each member’s allowance package comes to a few thousand rupees, those numbers run into the tens of millions of rupees when all the allowances are totaled.



    author bio photo

    The Record  We are an independent digital publication based in Kathmandu, Nepal. Our stories examine politics, the economy, society, and culture. We look into events both current and past, offering depth, analysis, and perspective. Explore our features, explainers, long reads, multimedia stories, and podcasts. There’s something here for everyone.



    Comments

    Get the best of

    the Record

    Previous Next

    YOU MAY ALSO LIKE

    COVID19

    News

    4 min read

    Covid19 Roundup, 2 May: Testing dismally low while PM turns into a poet

    The Record - May 2, 2020

    A daily summary of Covid19 related developments that matter

    COVID19

    Features

    9 min read

    Private citizens in Nepal and abroad lobby for vaccines

    Pranaya Sjb Rana , Ishita Shahi - May 13, 2021

    Confronted with the Nepal government’s inadequacy, individuals in Nepal, the US, the UK, and Canada are calling on foreign governments to ensure that Nepal gets a supply of vaccines

    News

    2 min read

    Landslides continue to batter Sindhupalchok

    The Record - September 13, 2020

    Villages routinely get swept away in Nepal’s most landslide-prone district because locals, fed up with government apathy, are building settlements in risky locations

    COVID19

    Photo Essays

    4 min read

    The digital divide in Jhapa

    Parwat Portel - January 6, 2021

    How students and teachers of Dhulabari Higher Secondary School coped with distance learning in 2020

    Perspectives

    9 min read

    What the UN’s ‘Code Red’ climate report means for Nepal

    Shuvam Rizal - August 15, 2021

    With rising temperatures all but certain, Nepal must focus on a more realistic and comprehensive emissions reduction strategy, strong regional cooperation, and effective global diplomacy.

    Perspectives

    9 min read

    Reining in presidential overreach in a fledgling republic

    Robin Sharma - July 26, 2021

    President Bidya Bhandari’s blatant partisanship has been detrimental not only to democracy but also to the idea of the new republic.

    COVID19

    Photo Essays

    3 min read

    Every fibre of his being

    Deewash Shrestha , Ishita Shahi - January 19, 2021

    Covid-19 forced Jaquir Mansuri to cancel his daughter’s wedding and delay his plans for retirement but the pandemic is not over yet and Mansuri has gone back to work.

    Photo Essays

    4 min read

    The dogfather

    Luja Manandhar - December 5, 2021

    Rupak Darshan travels the streets of Kathmandu every day, feeding hundreds of dogs, all out of a love for these animals and a desire to lessen their suffering.

    • About
    • Contributors
    • Jobs
    • Contact

    CONNECT WITH US

    © Copyright the Record | All Rights Reserved | Privacy Policy