Bolster Federalism For Good Governance

It has been around nine years since the Constitution of Nepal was promulgated in September 2015. When the constitution was proclaimed after an inordinate delay, there was an effusion of hope among the people that the country would proceed on the path to economic development and prosperity. The people realised that the country under the Panchayat regime had failed to make desirable progress on the economic front when there was no obstacle to accelerating development as the regime was monolithic. 

However, the political parties and leaders were bogged down in naming provinces and fixing provincial headquarters. They have not been able to implement the provision relating to federalism as enshrined in the constitution. Federalism is based on decentralisation. The authority and responsibilities of the state are devolved on three tiers of government: federal, provincial and local governments.

 Federal model

Before the introduction of the federal model in Nepal, the State Restructuring Committee proposed five bases of identity: ethnic, linguistic, cultural, geographical and historical. Likewise, four bases of capability were proposed: economic interrelationship and capability; infrastructure development and potential; availability of natural resources; and administrative accessibility. These bases have now been overlooked and no political party or leader has cared a hang about considering these bases in the course of implementing federalism. 

There are 753 local units spread over seven provinces with the aim of enabling people to enjoy the fruits of democracy and to make the local bodies active in effectively delivering public service and initiating development works in their jurisdictions. Although federalism has sacrosanct goals of bringing about prosperity among the people through economic development, the people have not been able to realise the same. Rather, some people have gone as far as saying that the provincial governments are a burden and so should be abolished. 

However, the people have taken the local bodies in a positive light. The role played by the local bodies during the COVID-19 pandemic despite limited resources and manpower was praiseworthy. Their role in rescuing, providing relief for and rehabilitating the affected people during the 2023 earthquake was equally admirable. The people did not the feel the presence of the provincial governments during these hours of distress. So the people have trust in the local bodies. 

As per the Asia Foundation Survey, 2022, 70.4 per cent of the people see their local bodies improving because of growing awareness of services relating to health, education and taxation. Nepal was without local bodies for 15 years from 2059 to 2074 BS, when elections to federal, provincial and local governments were held. The people had felt hassles owing to the absence of people’s representatives during this period. A glimmer of hope was aroused in the people when the local bodies were manned by the elected people’s representatives. 

However, lack of full implementation of the federal system has disappointed the people as well as the local people’s representatives. Although federalism holds decentralisation as one of its prime goals, not all the authority and responsibilities have been delegated to the subnational governments. As per the 2020 report of the Democratic Resource Centre Nepal, the federal government tends to override the authority of the subnational governments. Likewise, as per a study report on federalism, there is lack of clarity in jurisdictions among the federal, provincial and local governments. There is failure to ensure the rights of women and there is also failure to translate into action the recommendations made by the constitutional bodies. 

The major recommendations include decentralising powers, implementing administrative federalism, ensuring inter-provincial and inter-local government cooperation and coordination and establishing fiscal federalism to effectively implement the federal regime, among others. The federal government retains control over major tax sources – customs and excise duties, while the provincial and local governments have limited tax sources. So the lion’s share of revenue goes to the federal government. This implies that the subnational governments have to depend on the federal government for their operations. 

For lack of decentralisation, the local bodies are not free to act independently on certain matters such as health, forests and industries. It may be mentioned that the National Association of Rural Municipalities and the Municipal Association of Nepal issued a press release in 2019, stating that the local bodies’ ability to function independently on issues like education, health, forests and industries had been adversely affected owing to the non-devolution of powers. In a similar vein, the Chief Minister of the Madhes Province issued a 30-day ultimatum in November 2023, demanding the rights to deployment of civil servants, integration of police forces, control over forests and management of guthi (trust) land. 

Financial capacity

There is an acute need for beefing up the administrative and financial capacity of the subnational governments to implement federalism in a true sense so that public service delivery can be improved and economic development accelerated. Further, civil service administration should also be reinforced. The political parties and leaders seem to have failed to enlighten their cadres about the federal governance structure. That is why institutionalisng federalism has become a formidable challenge. 

As things stand, the political parties and leaders are eying the forthcoming general elections scheduled to be held in 2084 BS. It is surprising that not even two years have elapsed since the elections to the federal and provincial governments were held in 2079 BS. Now, their eyes are on Mission 84. They are focusing on winning a majority of seats (over 50 per cent) so that they can form a government of their own. But their Mission should not put the agendas of development and prosperity are on the backburner. 

(Maharjan has been regularly writing on contemporary issues for this daily since 2000.)