Mukti Rijal

Local governments – rural municipalities (Gaupalika) and municipalities (Nagarpalikas)- are keeping in hectic schedules this time of the year now. They are required to endorse their respective annual programmes and budget through their assemblies (legislatures) within the next week. However, these democratic political institutions are hard pressed to define their priorities and choices for the next year amid the COVID-19 offensive and looming populist lure of the elections to be held during the following year.
However, it is to be noted that. local governments have proved their credibility and acceptability in the exiting federal constitutional scheme through relatively better performance than other state institutions at a time when popular distaste and distrust of politics is all time high.

Survey Findings
A survey study findings disclosed during the last month indicate that local government institutions-Gaupalika (rural municipalities) and Nagarpalika (municipalities) top the scale of popularity with larger credence and trust of the people than the other state institutions in the current scheme of governance.
The rationale of the devolved federal system also lies in the fact that the local governments can take charge of the neighborhood development and grass root democratic governance more effectively than other institutions. But the fact should not be glossed over that the local governments have to fix several issues haunting them especially related with, among others, governance deficits, dichotomised politics-administration relationship and inherent capacity gaps and constraints.
I do often talk with the mayors of the municipalities (Nagarpalika), chairpersons of the rural municipalities (Gaupalika) especially to learn , among others, about what they think have been the challenges they meet in discharging their mandates during this term going to complete next year. Though they, as it is almost known, encounter several hitches like resource and capacity constraints to address the expectations of their constituents , most of them also articulate that the some bureaucratic personnel deputed by the central government at the local level harbor tendencies to create impediments in the functioning of the local governments. Though most of them, this writer talked whether from Kathmandu valley or outside tend to chose not to be identified by name but they echo the similar concerns when it comes to their uneasy relations with the administrative personnel.
They do complain that not all the centrally deputed personnel are not generally found to be responsive to the local needs, demands and concerns . It may be because of the act that they have to maintain their loyalty and accountability to the ministry at the federal level to which they owe their allegiance for their onward career progression in the hierarchy of civil bureaucracy. Some mayors have vented particularly their unhappiness with the way chief administrative officers have been transferred at the behest of federal authorities giving rise to recurring cycle of operational instability and fragility at the local level.
Moreover, according to the mayors, the administrative officers are deployed in some cases deliberately to undermine the authority , if not popularity, of the mayors at the bidding of the powerful politicians like federal parliament members and Pradesh lawmakers.
Vocal Mayors like Basu Dev Ghimire of Tillottama municipality , Rupendehi, who has earned a reputation and stole nationwide limelight by organising investment summit especially did not prefer to remain anonymous and argued that poor and lukewarm support of the chief administrative officer and other personnel deployed from the federal ministry fails often times to rhyme with spirit of the elected mayors who have to keep their promises and fulfill aspirations of the people. The Tilottama m ayor Ghimire also took exception to a few cases of mayors and chairpersons of suspected integrity who may be hobnobbing with administrative personnel to meet their own ends.

Fiscal Authority
It needs to be mentioned that the local government fiscal authority rests with the chief administrative officer that oftentimes makes the mayors , chairpersons and elected officials to conciliate and compromise with the former. However, the administrative personnel the writer talked recently contend that their differences with the elected chiefs crop up, when the question of fiscal discipline , complying with financial rules and regulations come on the anvil. The administrative personnel cannot afford to pander to the wishes and interests of the mayors and chairpersons since they cannot go to breach the boundaries defined by rules and regulations.
However, be that as it may, bureaucratic presence and predominance at the local level has its own antecedence that goes back to the long past. Especially when ten year long armed insurgency was at its peak during late nineties in Nepal, the entire state machinery had been forced to ricochet into retreat..
In fact, the process of democratic decentralisation and service delivery at local level had commenced in the 1990s capped by the enactment of the Local Self-governance Act and its rules in 1999. This legislation empowered local bodies to provide services and carry out local projects with their own resources and grants from the central government. The act had introduced a three tier local governance with District Development Committees (DDC), Village Development Committees (VDCs) in lowest tier of the rural areas.
VDCs and Municipalities had been crucial as the principal drivers for local development.. However, the decade long armed conflict meant that no local elections were held when the last elected body’s term expired in 2002 .VDC services which were almost squeezed and limited had been delivered from a corner of the District Development Committees (DDCs) where VDC secretaries had been given space and allowed to operate. The secretaries in those days had been the local level government emp loyees, and most of them might have gone into retirement now.
They had acted as the sole agent of the central government at the village , municipal and district level. In the absence of the elected representatives, these state employees had been authorized to allocate public fund without any proper checks, and supervision from the superior authority. Neither was it possible for the local citizens to verify and claim accountability from the VDC and municipal officials.
I recall an incident that had occurred to this writer in one of the districts lying in the present Lumbini Pradesh where a VDC secretary had strongly raised objection on the activities to educate and enable local citizens to engage with VDCs and municipal authorities especially to seek information as to how fund transferred by the central government has been allocated to different local projects. Moreover, the disclosure was sought to know the extent to which the fund allocation has been carried out in compliance with the government guidelines.
The concerned VDC secretary's objection mooted that that such civic activities will hinder the process of carrying out their routine work and cause them to unnecessarily engage to respond to the local people .
In some areas VDC secretaries had , of course, to reckon with challenges of physical attacks and other extortionist infringements putting their safety into jeopardy. But the insecure and highly volatile situation had been often times exploited reportedly to abuse authority and misappropriate resources to serve some unwarranted ends too.
VDC secretaries in those days had been widely networked and organized into a strong interest articulation and pressure group and they took resort to halt their acts on minor provocations. Often times, they declared to halt their services for months. As a result, the government had been compelled to give in to their demands as they were key personnel to assert and maintain the presence and availability of state agencies at least at the district and municipal level , if not at the village level.

Check And Balance
Later, with a view to offer check and balance and also integrate a kind of semblance of political legitimacy into functions of the local bodies, the government brought into effect the proposition to create an All Party Mechanism(APM) at the district , municipal and village levels.
The mechanism was expected to coordinate with bureaucratic officials and take collective decisions, among others , on local resource allocation and utilization. However, all party mechanism tuned out to be a kind of collusive network through which both local political elites representing the major parties and local bureaucrats could conspire informally to mis-allocate and misuse public resources to serve their own selfish ends. There was a hue and cry raised against the local political-bureaucratic nexus and the then government had scrapped the provision relating to all party mechanism. This again cleared the road for bureaucrats to act alone and legitimize their importance and role at the local level.
The federal constitution promulgated in 2015 that recognized and entrenched the status of the local bodies and transformed them into full-fledged local government has seemingly failed to settle politics-administration scores at the local level. The issues related to uncomfortable and uneasy relations between the elected officials and administration has remained unresolved even today that has cast shadow in the accomplishments of the local government.
In the current federal scheme of state organisation too, the administrative control of the federal ministry at local level has not loosened much. Federalism presupposes administrative autonomy and self-administration but this has become a far-fetched issue to keep the politics-administration row alive relegating the constitutional promise of robust local democratic self-governance and participatory local democracy at the bay.

(Rijal is associated withPolicy Research Institute (PRI) as a senior research fellow.rijalmukti@gmail.com)