The government has started to blatantly defy the parliamentary committees most of which are headed by the ruling CPN lawmakers.
A Madhav Kumar Nepal-led subcommittee under the International Relations and Labor Committee last year studied airports across the country and recommended in its report that it is not right to arbitrarily compete to build airports and deploy study teams without cost estimation.
The Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation had deployed a team for feasibility study of an airport at Nagidanda of Kavre at the time.
The report stated it will not be appropriate to construct a new domestic airport at Nagidanda when the Tribhuvan International Airport will mainly be used as a domestic airport once the Nijgadh International Airport comes into operation.
But the government ignored the recommendation of the subcommittee headed by a former prime minister and mentioned in the subsequent budget that an alternative domestic airport will be constructed at an appropriate place near the Kathmandu Valley.
The State Affairs Committee of the parliament on June 10 instructed the Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration to revoke the vacancy announced for over 9,000 local level staffers stating it was against the principle of inclusion.
The ruling lawmakers were the harshest critics of the advertisement and advised the government that they can even opt for province-wise inclusion instead of revoking the advertisement.
But the government slept on the instruction and waited for the court to intervene.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) last year concluded that there was misappropriation of Rs 4.35 billion in procurement of two wide-body planes by the Nepal Airlines Corporation, and stated the then Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Rabindra Adhikari and former ministers had moral responsibility in the corruption scam. It had also recommended suspension of civil aviation secretary and general manager of NAC Sugat Ratna Kansakar.
But the government attacked the report and formed its own probe committee instead of implementing the instruction. The committee headed by former justice Govinda Prasad Parajuli was given a 45-day mandate but the 45 days passed away without even swearing-in of the committee chairman. The scam is not even an issue now after death of Rabindra Adhikari.
The government has started to defy the parliamentary committees, called the mini parliament, not just in implementation of the instructions but even in mundane things like submitting documents.
The Legislative Management Committee of the National Assembly on March 24 had written to all the ministries to send the laws, regulations and directives but no ministry apart from the Defense Ministry sent them. Chairman of the committee Ram Naray Bidari publicly took exception to the defiance by ministries to even send the laws formulated by them.
Offices under the government have also started to follow the government in its disregard to the parliamentary committees.
The PAC in February had instructed the Nepal Telecom (NT) to send bid documents of 4G tender process stating there was corruption but the NT said the confidential documents cannot be sent and urged the lawmakers to come to its office for visit instead.
The chairmen of the committees under the House of Representatives (HoR), most of whom are from the ruling party, have started to privately express frustration at the defiance of government with lawmakers. But they have not openly criticized the government led by their own party.
"Nobody listens. The government considers recommendations of lawmakers to be worthless. We are labeled anti-government if we say any work is wrong," a CPN lawmaker told Setopati.
The government, on the other hand, has started to openly blast the parliamentary committees.
The International Relations and Labor Committee of the parliament on Wednesday instructed the government to not host the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) Awards.
Government Spokesperson and Minister for Communication and Information Technology Gokul Prasad Baskota on Thursday harshly criticized the parliamentary committees and took exception to the instruction given to stop IIFA Awards when the government had just given approval in principle and not signed any agreement to host the event.
"The government had said the Public Service Commission advertisement is constitutional. The court has decided and it is finished," Baskota fumed and asked what studies the committee conducted and which experts it consulted before deciding on IIFA. "What kind of study it did? Profit or loss? How dangerous….," he continued. "I believe they must have taken decision after completing a thesis."
