The Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (Third Amendment) Bill has been stalled for two months as the top leaders of the ruling party could not agree on the amendment made by the parliamentary sub-committee. After Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba were dissatisfied with the changes made by the sub-committee on the definition of political corruption, the State Order and Good Governance Committee of the House of Representatives stopped the process of passing the report of the bill.

The sub-committee led by MP Hridayram Thani prepared a report on the 4th of December after resolving the controversial issues of the bill and submitted it to the chairman of the committee, Ramhari Khatiwada.

The sub-committee amended the definition of policy decision in the bill in order to control the corruption that is rampant in the guise of policy decision. A sub-committee representing all parties prepared a report unanimously. The report of the anti-corruption bill, submitted together, has been accepted by the committee on December 18 and sent to the House of Representatives. 

After the bill was not brought to the discussion of the committee, there has been an occasional clash between the chairman of the State Arrangements Committee Khatiwada and the sub-committee coordinator Thani in the parliamentary committee. A member of the State Arrangements Committee says that Baluwatar is trying to amend the report of the sub-committee. At a time when the international image of the country is going down in the matter of corruption control and good governance, the leaders of the ruling party, who are supposed to tighten the policies and regulations, are indifferent in creating the law that empowers the research and regulatory bodies in this regard.

The sub-committee concluded that there is a tendency to make corruption by the Council of Ministers by circumventing the existing laws and regulations, making decisions in a non-transparent manner in which interests conflict with public procurement and contracts, and calling it a political decision. Officials of the Authority say that corruption under the guise of policy decisions is increasing.

When making decisions on matters of public procurement, contracts, projects of national pride and plans of strategic importance, the tendency is to take it to the cabinet for fear of being scrutinized.

Recently, widebody ship purchase, Terramax, Lalita Niwas government land, Giribandhu T-Estate, Patanjali, Nepal Trust's land misuse, Taragaon land lease, which came to the surface in the last time, were decided by the Council of Ministers.

The sub-committee has made a provision in the bill that any decision made in relation to public procurement will not be policy-based, except in cases where the decision must be made by the cabinet itself. It has also been defined that any decision that enters into the authority of such an officer or agency or exceeds the jurisdiction of such an officer or agency is not a policy.

Similarly, it is said that any decision made to benefit, facilitate or benefit a particular person or organization is not a policy, except for those that are equally applicable to the general public according to the law. The main concern of Prime Minister Oli and Congress President Deuba is in this latest provision. 

An official of the Congress said that Oli and Deuba want to amend it because this provision prevents support for natural disasters and the treatment of a specific person. Prime Minister Oli called Congress and UML parliamentarians along with sub-committee coordinator Thani to Baluwatar on December 4 through committee chairman Khatiwada. But after Thani's boycott, there was no further discussion about it in Baluwatar.

Akhtiar's report has pointed out the fact that more than 30 percent of political corruption occurs. Corruption is rampant under the guise of policy decisions,' said Thani, 'the country has become infamous at the international level. In order to prevent this, we have made it clear in the bill about what is policy and what is not. Now it has been taken to the ICU.

Khatiwada, Chairman of the State Management Committee, said that there is a need for more clarity in the report of the sub-committee about policy decisions. Landslides washed away the houses and farms of the citizens, will the government help them or not? Helping such people will be beneficial," he said. "Even so, how can the government make a decision if the authority files a case? It seems that there should be an amendment.

He said that the bill will move forward after the decision made by the sub-committee becomes more clear. "The main thing is that if the decision made by the secretary is made by the minister and the work done by the minister is done by the cabinet, it will not be considered as policy. We will make it clear that we will take the bill to the parliament within this session." 

A few days ago, the survey of Transparency International, an international organization that monitors corruption and good governance, showed that Nepal's situation is worse, and only on Friday, another organization, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), included Nepal in the negative list (grey list). Nepal has been included in the negative list due to the lack of expected improvements in law enforcement, investigation and prosecution of financial crimes. 

Former Law Minister Madhav Paudel said that the problem arose when the bill was proposed to bring corruption down to the grassroots instead of controlling corruption by giving more powers to the state's regulatory and investigating agencies to control corruption and money laundering.

There has been a controversy after the matter of the authority not having jurisdiction was placed in the policy decision of the provincial council of ministers. The matter that was only in the federal government was also taken to the states. The provincial government has not asked for the right to make policy decisions. The government has brought the arrangement to extend this right to the provinces without asking for it, this is a mistake," he said. Poudel, who participated as an expert when the bill was discussed in the parliamentary committee, said that there were no issues of controversy other than the policy decision in the bill. There were representatives of all political parties in the sub-committee and the report was made unanimously. There is no reason to stop. If it is a policy matter, it should be clear,' he said. 

 UML MP Raghuji Pant, who is also a member of the State Affairs Committee, said that the government's opinion is yet to come on the report prepared by the sub-committee. "The government was absent from the sub-committee, the home minister should give his opinion on the bill on behalf of the government and it will move forward," he said, "The government's interest is in the policy decision." It is difficult to make decisions by binding the federal government more or not. Let them discuss this.' Pant said that the bill may have been stopped after some time because the government's point of view should be kept. 

current arrangement

The Commission shall not conduct investigation and investigation under this Act and any action related to any action or decision taken in the legislative parliament or committee meeting or any matter spoken or done by any member in such a meeting or any policy decision made collectively by the Council of Ministers or any of its committees and judicial proceedings of the court 

Provisions in the

Bill: No investigation, investigation or any other action will be taken by the commission under this Act in connection with the proceedings or decisions of the federal parliament, the provincial assembly or the committee meeting under it, or any matter spoken or done by any member in such meeting, or any policy decision made by the government of Nepal, the council of ministers or any of its committees or the judicial proceedings of the court.