If we were to believe the report from the Transparency International then we should all be happy that our land is a little less corrupt than it was a year ago. Yes, we are now ranked 122nd out of 180 countries in the Corruption Perception Index.
We were 131st last year. And maybe in a few years, we will finally be on the upper half of the ‘less corrupt’ list and even beat our chimekis to be the first ‘corruption-free’ land in the SAARC region.
But how do these bideshi folks come up with such rankings? Do they visit Nepal and then go to Baluwatar, our government offices and our borders and see if they have to pay bribes to get things done or do they just sit on their desk at home and come up with fake numbers to crunch to calculate our ‘corruptness’?
We don’t know but bideshis can rank anything and most of the world believes the rankings. Maybe, folks from this side of the Earth should come up with their own rankings and we can rank the West according to how we view them and not from what we watch on Television.
Our folks who live in New York can help us rank the folks there and those who are working in the Middle East can rank the place and how folks behave in the desert. Well, that would be the best report rather than believing what foreign organizations and media tell us.
But Transparency International is not making stuff up. Yes, our politicians and civil servants are the most corrupt ones in this land. And the reality is that our politicians, civil servants and fake VAT-bill byaparis continue to loot us all and it doesn’t look like our chors will mend their ways anytime soon.
First of all, if were to really minimize corruption in this land then the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) should change its name.
The CIAA sounds like an organization for former CIA agents who are having a tough time being normal and adjusting to the real world. Why not just name it ‘ Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA)? And then, we need to have the ACA under the office of the President to make it more independent and not be played around by our netas and civil servants.
Our netas worked together to appoint Lok Man as our anti-corruption chief thinking that they would not come under any investigation but little did they realize that Lok Man, the man who was our Chief Secretary under Gyanu Uncle had other plans.
Even today, our CIAA continues to catch small fishes while our big sharks continue to enjoy their political career and continue to misuse their authority to loot from our State Treasury as well as from civil servants, contractors and common folks.
We thought that after our local level, provincial and federal elections, we would finally get the right folks leading us all to peace and prosperity. But we were wrong. Most of the folks who are now back in the game are the same old chors, who will bleed this country dry and won’t be ashamed of it.
Our former CEO of Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) is heading to jail for embezzling hundreds of millions of Rupees while in office. But why are our civil servants and mantries heading the concerned ministries not being investigated at all? I think our CIAA folks and our justices should not think of us as fools.
We all know that almost all of our government agencies submit fake bills and even ask those who win the government contracts to do so or go home. But when our CIAA folks begin their investigation, the byaparis who get the contracts are blamed for all the mess and then only a few civil servants get busted.
We have our former IGPs getting the blame for the so-called ‘Sudan APC Scandal’ but it seems that the Home Secretary and even the Home Minster then had no clue on what was going on. But our police chiefs cannot act alone without the blessings or pressure from the Secretary and the Mantri.
And even our former NTB CEO could not have stolen millions and millions of Rupees without making our sarkari hakim sahebs and mantris happy!
It’s the same story with the ‘Tax Department’ scandal where Chudamani dai helped to steal billions of Rupees. We all know that our so-called top leaders got their cut but it seems that our CIAA folks, our courts and even our police are helpless when it comes to taking action against our ‘political’ chors.
Nepal Police seems to be good at ‘encounter’ nataks rather than going after folks who rape our women and torture children and the elderly. It seems that our gangsters are good at making phone calls to our byaparis and receives millions of Rupees as protection money but fail miserably to protect themselves.
Why on earth do these criminals get on a motorbike and drive around in the early mornings and then meet our cops and start firing at them, fully knowing that our brave cops will fire back at least a dozen shots and finish them off? Only our cops know the real truth but let us hope that our cops do their work according to the laws of the land rather than acting like ‘Rambos’.
Yes, we need to arrest these criminals and send them to jail but just finishing them off on the streets will only help those in power to causally dispose the gangsters whose services are no longer needed by them!
Maybe, someday, our police, our CIAA and our courts will find the courage to punish our ‘thulo’ chors as well. But please, the law of the jungle does not suit our men and women in blue who must be reminded that they have taken the oath to protect everyone and let the courts decide the punishment instead.
This article is written by Guffadi who is a grumpy old man who blogs at guffadi.blogspot.com. You may contact him at maguffadi@gmail.com
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