Ranju Kafle

The more the government ran the gauntlet for failing to achieve good governance and prosperity, the stronger the steps it took to curb corruption and boost service delivery.
Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli began his second tenure in office on February 15, 2018, with the announcement of zero tolerance against corruption. “I would neither be involved in corruption nor will allow anyone to get involved in it,” he said. However, the PM’s statement was criticised for being populist initially but he swung into action by taking tough steps against corruption cases such as gold smuggling and registering of public land in the name of individuals.
Theoretically, good governance helps ensure minimisation of corruption, effective and efficient service delivery. The decisions on the public matters are broad-based. These ideas appear easier said than done. Not only poor and developing countries but even the developed countries have been struggling to curb corruption completely.

Action against land scam
The present government dug out facts and information about the Lalita Niwas land scam. Around 175 individuals, including VIPs like former deputy prime minister Bijaya Kumar Gachhadar, former ministers Chandradev Joshi, Chhabiraj Panta and Dambar Shrestha and former government secretary Deep Basnyat, former chief of Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) were taken action for their involvement in the land scam. The anti-graft body had filed corruption charge-sheet against them at the Special Court.
On December 2, 1964, the government had acquired 114 ropanis of land belonging to Lalita Niwas by giving due compensation to its owners but later it was illegally captured by various individuals. Lawmaker Khimlal Bhattarai said that it was the government’s bold step towards controlling corruption and promoting good governance. “No previous governments had dared to recover the public land occupied by the individuals,” he added.
Likewise, the government had scrapped the deal on the purchase of medical equipment with Omni Business Group. Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) not only annulled the agreement with the tainted business group, it also confiscated Rs. 50 million in security deposit after it was unable to provide quality materials required for the treatment of COVID-19. The Omni was awarded with the contract to import the protective gears, including masks, virus test kits, PPEs and other medical logistics from China.
Minister of Agriculture and Livestock Development Padma Aryal said that it was not so easy to work thoroughly against corruption in the current system. “Corruption has strong roots. The PM has not only talked about controlling corruption but he has suited actions to words,” she said.
Apart from this, booking gold smugglers through strict surveillance at the Tribhuvan Airport and other border points was another achievement of the government. Police arrested gold smugglers like Chudamani Upreti known as ‘Gorey’, Gopal Bahadur Shahi, Hari Sharan Khadka and twelve others for their involvement in the 33-kg gold smuggling. The infamous gold smuggling scam happened in 2017 and police arrested Khadka from the airport when he was returning from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2018.
On August 14 2020, the police again arrested Altaf Hussein Ansari, an alleged mastermind of another gold scam. He was arrested from Nijgadh Bara and brought to Kathmandu for further investigation. He was put behind bars. Two Indian nationals were also arrested from Nawalparasi for their involvement in the transaction of counterfeit Indian currency and in gold scam.

Network broken
Tej Bahadur Paudyal, the spokesperson of Tribhuvan International Airport, said that the government broke strong network of the smugglers through surveillance mechanism established inside the airport.
Professor Dr. Krishna Chandra Sharma said that ensuring balanced participation, establishing rule of law, and maintaining transparent decision making process and responsiveness formed clear indicators of good governance. “There is good governance if governmental institutions, private sector and civil society are accountable towards people,” he added.
According to him, accountability, political stability, absence of violence, government effectiveness and control on corruption denote fair and transparent governance. Devendra Dhakal, information officer at the Supreme Court, said that gold smuggling had largely declined with the arrest of its masterminds.

(Kafle is a TRN journalist)