KATHMANDU, Aug 9: The much-hyped good governance plan of Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai has been a fiasco, with most of the time-bound schemes failing to see the light of the day even after six months of their announcement on January 27.
In his bid to implement one of his four priorities announced shortly after appointment to the top executive post on August 28 last year, the prime minister had unveiled a comprehensive good governance plan comprising 23 time-bound main programs. But, as of Wednesday, only four programs have been implemented.
While some of the programs are supposed to be implemented immediately, the rests were to be implemented either within three months or six months.
According to a report prepared by the Prime Minister´s Office, works have not even been started on 13 programs though preliminary works have been begun on six.
One of the good governance plans of the prime minister was establishing 75 integrated service centers across the country within six months (July 27). But only four such centers have been set up. Similarly, another plan was to brining the regional administration offices under the Prime Minister´s office. Though the offices have been brought under the PMO, the details of the arrangements have yet to be worked out, according to an informed source at the Prime Minister´s Office.
The third plan was monitoring of the implementation of the code of conduct of ministers and civil servants but such monitoring is yet to start, according to the monitoring report.
Likewise, the prime minister´s plan had promised to develop citizen charters within three months specifying compensation to people if they were not provided service on time. Though the PMO and all the ministries were supposed to implement it, there has been no progress on it, according to the source.
Another plan related to filling vacant posts in local bodies has also been limited only to the papers. In addition, the government was supposed to finalize a political mechanism to run the local bodies until another election of local bodies. But not a single stone has been turned in these regards, according to PMO source.
"We have done some administrative works in this regard but organization and management survey have not been carried out. The new posts cannot be created and filled in the absence of such a survey," said Secretary at the Local Development Ministry Shital Babu Regmi.
Another good government program was to reduce the existing public holidays so that the government offices would have more time to deliver service to people.
"We had recommended the government to slash the public holiday by fifty percent. We are surprised to learn that cabinet increased the public holiday, adding one more in the existing 52 days of public holiday," said a source at the Ministry of Home Affairs privy to the development.
Likewise, the plan had promised to introduce result-oriented work performance system in public service, but the PMO source told Republica that only preliminary work has been done in this regard.
The list of the unimplemented plans goes on. The PMO and the Ministry of Finance Ministry were supposed to develop result-oriented indicators of all annual programs and regular service delivery by all the ministries within three months. But the plan is far from implementation.
Another good governance scheme that missed the six-month deadline is introduction of performance-based punishment and reward system in bureaucracy. The PMO and the Ministry of General Administration were supposed to implement the plan but they are yet to begin works, according to sources at the Ministry of General Administration and PMO.
In his bid to make government secretaries more accountable, the prime minister had announced to introduce performance contract system at the secretary level. The secretaries of each ministry were supposed to sign a contract with their respective minister by July 26 but not a single secretary has done so, according to PMO officials.
Another major good governance plan that is yet to see even preliminary works is strengthening of the National Vigilance Center. The prime minister had announced to being works immediately after the plan became effective on January 27. But the plan has turned into just a lip service.
According to the PMO source, the PMO, under the plan, was supposed to immediately begin works to reconstitute the National Security Council. But the plan has been gathering dusts in PMO´s cupboard.
Interestingly, most of the unimplemented programs were supposed to be carried out by the PMO itself.
The plan had proposed a high-level committee led by the prime minister himself to monitor the implementation of the plans. But the committee has not convened even a single meeting for the past six months, according to PMO officials.
However Chief Secretary Leela Mani Paudyal said, "The plans are partly successulf, partily in the process of implementation and partly unimplemented."
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