KATHMANDU: Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has instructed the ministers and secretaries to consider serving the people as their paramount duty and act accordingly.
In a meeting with ministers and secretaries at the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers in Singh Darbar today, he urged to provide the services that the people are entitled to from the government in an easy and prompt manner.
“Stop ruling from your tables from today and instead work efficiently and effectively as a servant of the people,” he said.
He has also instructed them to not provide vehicle facilities and fuel to employees or other officials except those who are entitled to it as per the law. Citing increasing fuel prices affecting the country’s foreign exchange, he instructed government employees to reduce their unnecessary expenses.
Prime Minister Deuba also instructed the ministers and secretaries to work towards making the country become self-sufficient in vegetables and fruits within six months and food within one year. He emphasized that all the ministries should make plans and work towards increasing electricity consumption and promoting exports.
Prime Minister Deuba has asked all sides concerned to work for the preparations of federal and province assembly polls that are to be completed in some months. PM Deuba also urged to give top priority for the completion of the elections in a free, fair and credible environment.
Saying that entire strength and vigour should be devoted for economic progress, social transformation and good-governance, the PM stated the bottlenecks of development should be resolved through policy and institutional reforms by identifying those issues on time.
On the occasion, PM Deuba directed the ministers and secretaries to bring about positive changes in the service delivery to achieve good results through enhancement of the implementation capacity.
During the event, the PM said COVID-19 has had serious impact on our economic and social activities and our economy has witnessed external sector’s pressure leading to challenges in all sectors of the economy. “But, the situation is not so worrisome. Growth in the recurrent expenditure should be controlled by strengthening policy implementation and regulation side. We should work to control inflation and ensure investment capital in the productive sector,” according to the PM.
The major challenge of the time is to maintain economic stability and gradually bring reforms in the key indicators of economy, PM Deuba said.
Likewise, PM Deuba urged all to speed up implementation of the development projects to contribute to SDGs target, and Nepal’s graduation from the least developed country (LDC) by 2026.
Furthermore, the PM laid emphasis on timely completion of the incomplete projects including the national pride projects.
Similarly, PM Deuba stated that consumption of the petroleum products should be gradually reduced while increasing consumption of hydroelectricity and directed the line agencies to introduce concrete plan of action for increasing consumption of hydroelectricity.
The PM was of the opinion that the concept of rule of law should be translated into practice by strictly controlling all sorts of violence and crimes, and to expedite development speed by creating investment-friendly environment by further strengthening law and order situation.
Don’t advance projects with no funding assurance
On a different note, Prime Minister Deuba directed authorities concerned not to put forth the projects which have not been assured with funding.
Emphasizing that the National Planning Commission (NPC) should ensure improved and effective inter-agency coordination for the timely implementation of the projects, PM Deuba directed all ministries to do necessary ground works well before executing any projects.
The prime minister directed the authorities to not advance any project and programmes having no funding assurance.
It was necessary to further strengthen the coordination, mutual cooperation and interdependence among the three tiers reflecting lessons and experiences of federalism implementation, he said and underscored the need of enhancing governance capacity of province and local levels so as to implement the Constitution.
The ministry concerned should formulate necessary policy, standards and guidelines to carry out development works and improve service delivery, the PM directed.
The head of the government ordered the ministries concerned to put forth a concrete proposal for managing necessary human resource in a way to address development projects and programme in aggregate which are facing challenge due to inadequate human resource.
PM Deuba also directed to immediately address complaints on stagnation of progress in development due to the issues of land acquisition, utilization of forest area, approval of environment impact assessment, security of development projects, resource availability, easy availability of construction materials and human resource.
Highlighting the need of improvement in inter-agency coordination, tendency not to take risks in decision-making and legal hurdles, PM Deuba directed the authorities to take decision from the legally-defined level so as to make decision-making process fast and transparent.
PM Deuba laid emphasis on the enhancement of state capacity to monitor and regulate in a way that the private investment and entrepreneurship would not be discouraged. He ordered to stringently execute the zero tolerance policy against corruption at all levels of the state.
Underscoring the need of making administration reforms an integral part of governance reform, he expressed government’s commitment to introduce Civil Service Act without any delay.
