The post Dashain Continues for Nepal Government Officials appeared first on Nepali Sansar.
]]>Even two days after Dashain, government offices continue to see a low attendance from civil servants and government officials.
Civil servants have not returned to duty in Singha Durbar, Nepal’s main administrative building and its departments.
Several ministries secretaries, joint-secretaries and lower-level staff were absent on October 22, 2018. Moreover, chambers of ministers and high-ranking officials remained closed.
“I could not serve tea and water to my guests as my staff have not returned from holidays,” said a senior official at Singha Durbar.
Luckily, senior officials who did not participate in Dashain festivities and who live close to Kathmandu were able to attend office on October 21 and 22, 2018.
Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration Secretary Dinesh Thapaliya said Junior officials and staffers were yet to return from festive celebrations. “Civil servants are gradually joining office; the festive mood is not over yet,” Thapaliya added.
Noted as one of the busiest premises in Nepal, the Department of Passport (DoP) processes over 1,000 passports and receives almost the same number of applications in a day.
Unfortunately, on the first day after Dashain the office received 330 applications which further increased to some more until October 22, 2018. The office at the time had few staff.
The Department of Transport Management’s license section received a few service requests. However, there were even fewer government officials to cater to these requests.
Overall, officials said that the service delivery was not badly affected as the demand after festive season was low.
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]]>The post Nepal Mulls Deal for Civil Services Capacity Enhancement appeared first on Nepali Sansar.
]]>As the reports say, the government is negotiating on a new deal with 14 donor agencies to raise a fund of Rs 23 billion to support civil services capacity development.
The Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration (MoFAGA) is planning to utilize this fund over a period of four years towards capacity enhancement of civil servants across 750 local units.
According to MoFAGA, the country currently has around 17,900 civil servants across local units.
Whereas, Dinesh Thapaliya, Secretary at MoFAGA feels that the country would still require more civil servants for effective functioning of local bodies. In a briefing to the State Affairs Committee (SAC), he said the country is currently short of 40,000 civil servants.
“Government is planning to spend Rs 23 billion on capacity enhancement and training for civil servants at the local units over the next four years. We have chosen 14 donor agencies for the purpose, but we are yet to sign the official agreement,” said Thapaliya.
He further informed that the funds will be used through the provincial governments without any direct involvement of federal or local governments.
Civil Servants, Need of the Hour
Under the plan, the Ministry will classify all local units into 10 categories based on population, revenue, infrastructure and geography.
And, even a small local unit will have at least three special officers including an education officer, an engineer and a chief executive.
According to MoFAGA, this situation is the result of government’s failure to deploy required number of civil servants at the local level. “Most of the civil servants transferred to local units in Province 2 were either sent back by the local units or ran into complaints of failure to perform,” says Thapaliya.
However, officials claim that lack of timely deployment is majorly due to delay in the passage of the Federal Civil Servants Bill.
The cabinet approved 45,858 civil service positions at the central level including for different bodies such as courts, Foreign Ministry and Attorney General’s Office and has given only 21,399 for the provinces and 58,000 for local levels.
Thapaliya feels that 28,000 civil servants will be enough to meet related requirements at the center.
Event lawmakers, opposition party leaders and others find fault with the government’s act of utilizing funds for training and seminars and urge that it should instead focus on producing more civil servants.
Let’s hope the new deal will give needed push to address the civil servant requirements at all levels of the country.
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]]>The post Civil Servants Spend Rs 1 Billion Govt Budget on Foreign Visits appeared first on Nepali Sansar.
]]>Government officials, who are supposed to serve the public, are becoming a burden to tax payers in Nepal.
As the sources reveal, official foreign visits of 1,400 civil servants in the last two months costed a billion rupees for the government.
Around 1,442 officials were said to have already received approvals for their visits to almost 30 countries, and more are expected soon. The list excludes the visits to India.
“Some visits were really useful to boost bilateral relations and for personal growth. But most of those visits were sheer waste of money,” reads a statement from PMO.
Keeping aside the intended objectives of bilateral ties and study tours, factors such as travel & daily expense allowances and luxury comforts form the major source of attraction for the officials travelling abroad.
“Most civil servants consider foreign junket as a journey to heaven. Since there is a provision of expenditure, they spend more time on how to arrange foreign junket than performing their assigned duties,” says Former General Administration Minister, Lalbabu Pandit.
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