The present government, led by Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, took office on February 15, 2018. Enjoying the solid mandate of the electorate, the government raised new hopes of political stability, prosperity and good governance. This is what the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) had promised to the people in its election manifesto. The government completed its three years in office on Monday. During a press briefing held on this occasion, Prime Minister Oli outlined the achievements made by his government during this period and reiterated that he is firm to fulfill the electoral pledge. But he also dwelt on the issue of internal bickering within the ruling party that created serious obstacles in the performance of the government. The Prime Minister said that some party colleagues started to show the obstructive tendencies from the initial phase of the government and prevented him from making important appointments and taking vital decisions.

According to the PM, the spoilers went to the extent of creating hurdles in public service delivery and development efforts through inaction on the draft bill regarding development and the amendment of the public procurement act. Plans on expediting works of national pride projects were affected. The Prime Minister also lamented about a serious state of non-cooperation from his party colleagues which prevented the appointments of officials in the vacant constitutional posts and in the past three years. He said that intra-party impediments had come in various forms which intensified in the last one year, so much so that a government that commanded the support of nearly two-thirds majority members of the parliament had to face a difficulty like that of a coalition government. A parallel government of sorts existed within the party and thus, the Prime Minister said, he was compelled to take the move to dissolve the House of Representatives and announce fresh election dates to seek public mandate.

During his 2-hour long press briefing, the Prime Minister enumerated the achievements made by the government on various fronts of development. He outlined the progress made in the implementation of federalism and formulation of relevant laws, procedures and regulations. The strides on the economic front were robust with the growth rate of 7 per cent until the outbreak of COVID-19 had its paralysing impacts on all sectors. Even in these hard times, Nepal’s import has gone down and there has been some increase in export as well as remittance inflow. Similarly, poverty has not increased in Nepal despite grip of the pandemic. Record breaking production of rice due to good monsoon rains has added new hopes.

In the past three years, the government constructed 15,867 kilometres of roads. There has been a progress in electricity sufficiency with the addition of 333 megawatts of power to the national grid and construction of transmission lines and sub-stations. Production of main cereal crops has increased by 11.2 per cent. “We are the ones who started social security programmes of a welfare state,” the PM said, adding that the scope of social security has been expanded as per the constitutional provisions aimed at building socialism-oriented economy. Despite the complaints that nothing has happened, international reports have shown that Nepal has made notable progress in economic and social development. He dismissed the rumours of uncertainty whether elections will take place or not and asserted, “There will be election, and it will be free, fair and impartial.”