Federal civil bill is not a priority for anyone – Online Khabar

Kathmandu, August 7. The Federal Public Service Bill is under consideration in the House Committee on State Order and Good Governance. After theoretical discussions, it is yet to be determined whether the House will begin discussing the bill on June 15.

Committee chairman Ramhari Khatiwada said: “The committee will not sit on the day Parliament sits and Parliament will not sit on the day the committee sits. Let’s discuss the important bills first.”

The committee is currently considering the Prevention of Corruption Act 2059 amendment bill. After that, the Commission is preparing to discuss the third amendment bill on a quarterly basis. After that, it plans to discuss the Building Materials (Management and Regulation) Bill 2080.

Only after the discussion of the three bills is completed can the federal civil bill be considered.

Even after that, it is doubtful that the legal process will proceed smoothly, as a federal implementing bill has not yet been prioritized by any government.

Local and state governments are facing staff shortages. But for a long time, the bill regulating the formation, functioning and service conditions of the federal civil service has not been introduced. The Federal Public Service Bill, submitted to Parliament by the decision of the Council of Ministers on August 21, 2080, was not registered in Parliament until the third week of February (21st), when the bill entangled the interests of various parties, including influential levels of employees and trade unions.

Even after reaching Parliament, neither the government nor Parliament took any action, referring the bill to the Parliamentary Committee for the Winter Session after theoretical discussions. After the annual session began, the bill was sent to the State System Committee for quarterly discussions on June 15. The committee held a general discussion in early June and currently has no plans to discuss the Public Service Bill further.

The bill, considered one of the most important bills for implementing federalism, was registered in Parliament in January 2075 and passed by a majority vote by the then National Institutions Committee in June 2077. However, the government withdrew the bill from Parliament in October 2078, saying that the parties had not reached a consensus.

After two and a half years, the bill was submitted to Parliament again, but it was not a priority for any of the major parties.

The employees themselves have also started raising their voices saying that the parliamentary committee has not shown any interest in finalising and issuing the civil bill. On August 2, in Rupandehi, the active employee unions issued a joint statement saying that due to the non-introduction of the bill, the use and practice of federalism has become problematic and the moral development of employees has been affected.

“We demand that parliament quickly pass the federal civil service law in favor of employees, including the proposed amendments to the bill jointly submitted by national trade unions, which have been postponed for discussion in the parliamentary committee on national order,” the four organizations said in a statement.

It is said that the enactment of the Federal Civil Service Act was a failure of efforts to guide the minimum conditions of the bureaucracy that has the primary responsibility for implementing federalism, and this has happened repeatedly even in the civil service.

According to committee chairman Katiwad, the bill has received 1,583 amendments. He claimed that he gave priority to other bills because supporters should also be called when discussing this bill.

“Why some people are saying the anti-corruption bill is not a priority and another bill on construction materials is not being considered either,” said chairman Khatiwada. We will look at the construction-oriented bills after the corruption-related bills and then we will move on to the public servants bill.

UML MP Raghuji Pant, a member of the committee, said some issues of the Civil Bill should be resolved politically by sitting with top leaders of various parties. “The Civil Bill has various amendments in employee unions and there are other important issues,” he said.

He said the Building Materials Management and Regulation Bill should also be finalised soon. Since the Civil Service Bill will take a long time, attempts are being made to delay it. “We should give more time to the Civil Bill once the discussion starts,” said UML MP Pant.

The then Union Affairs Minister Anita Devi, who registered the civil bill in Parliament, said that the discussion on the anti-corruption bill should be completed soon and then sent to the civil services department. She, who is also a member of the National Arrangements Commission, said, “We should work on passing the civil bill, which was achieved after much hard work.” She said that even if the committee sat for another hour or two, an environment should be created to take the discussion forward.

Former minister Devi said there was no need to over-politicise the legislative process and said consensus on the amendments could be reached through discussions within the committee. Former minister Devi said the government should also take steps to keep in mind the need and “urgency” of the civil bill.

A former secretary expressed suspicion that the bill may not have received attention in the parliamentary session because it was not a priority for the government. “In the past, subcommittees were formed to discuss pending bills and finalize them quickly,” he said.

The government is not ready to accept that the civil bills are not being given priority. Chief Secretary Liladevi Gadtaula said she is taking steps to start discussions on the civil bills pending in parliamentary committees. “We have requested that discussions start as soon as possible,” she said. “We want it to start as soon as possible.”

Administration of Golmaal

Because the Federal Civil Service Act had not yet been introduced, the federal government’s personnel management was in chaos. There were many distortions and problems in matters such as employee recruitment, transfer, promotion, and action.

The government followed the guidance of the Public Service Act 2049. This meant that the executive federalism, which was supposed to be distributed as per the Constitution, also fell into the hands of Singh Darbar.

The Constitution has vested the power of the Lion Courts in the local and provincial governments, but since no new law has been framed, the allocation and management of personnel are being done as per the laws of yesterday’s centralized system. The tendency of workers to hang around in the Singhadarbar area has not been broken. In the absence of union staff, more than 200 local magistrates at all levels are functioning under the authority of the acting chief administrative officer.

Former administrators and experts commented that party leaders and employees in influential positions took executive federalism into their own hands.

In some provincial ministries, the posts of provincial secretaries, which should have been filled by the unions, are vacant, but the secretaries promoted by the provinces have to serve as office-bearers as joint secretaries. The local and state governments that serve the people are in trouble because they cannot get staff sent by the unions.

Provincial governments have the Provincial Public Service Act and local governments have the Local Services Act. But in the absence of federal legislation, state and local governments also struggle to recruit staff.

Anita Devi, former Union Affairs and General Services Minister, said experts, employees, and public representatives all want the Civil Code to be introduced as soon as possible. “It is a problem because the provincial civil code conflicts with the federal law, and local employees are also hit. There is administrative confusion at the state and local levels,” she said. “There is a problem of not allowing union employees to go to the state, so the Federal Public Service Act must be brought in as soon as possible.”

The enactment of the Federal Public Service Act is said to be a failure in the efforts to guide the minimum conditions of the bureaucracy that has the primary responsibility of implementing federalism, which has been repeatedly seen even in the civil service. Since the bill was introduced by the Maoist-led unity government, there are doubts that the current ruling coalition will not adopt it.

Former administrators and experts commented that party leaders and employees in influential positions have taken administrative federalism into their own hands. Purnachandra Bhattarai, a former secretary and administrative expert, said that if the law is not enacted quickly, the entire civil service will run on an ad hoc basis. “If a law is not made under the new constitution to implement administrative federalism, there will be a lot of problems at the provincial and local levels,” he said.

Administrative expert Dr. Bhimdev Bhatt said that despite the implementation of federalism, the government and political parties are not clear and honest about its implementation. He commented that the civil code is not a priority for anyone because the thinking of the government and politicians is confused.

He said unclear division of powers and jurisdictions between the three levels of government added to the complexity. “Employees in provincial and local unions are not ready to accept it easily. Another problem is that employees are not withdrawing from unions as much as they could,” he said. “Union politics dominates the government and they are just looking for union politics.” In order to make arrangements that are beneficial to them, a federal civil law is needed to address such issues. “There is no political will.”