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Govt's bid to rein in DDCs fails

   
  

Added At:  2012-04-19 12:12 AM

   Last Updated At: 2012-04-19 12:12 AM

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HIMALAYAN NEWS SERVICE

LALITPUR: Irregularities in local bodies continue unabated despite

the Ministry of Local Development (MoLD) issuing warning letters every year to the District Development Committees for flouting government rules and regulations.

The MoLD has recently issued warning letters to the 25 DDCs for allocating budget against the existing laws. Similarly, during the last fiscal year, it had warned 34 DDCs for indulging in irregularities and misusing development funds. However, majority of districts failed to submit any clarification. Yet, no action was taken against those districts, said the MoLD officials.

Neither the local bodies followed the ministry’s directions in the past nor had they submitted the monthly, four-monthly and annual reports to the MoLD. The ministry has directed the DDCs to provide board decisions officially within seven days of their board meetings in the current fiscal year.

The DDCs that got warning letters recently from the MoLD are Taplejung, Dhankuta, Siraha, Jhapa, Chitwan, Lalitpur, Bhaktapur, Dhading, Sindhuli, Kaski, Arghakhachi, Myagdi, Palpa, Rupandehi, Nawalparasi, Dadeldhura, Baitadi, Kailali, Doti, Banke, Jajarkot, Jumla, Baglung, Bajhang and Makwanpur.

“We issued letters on the basis of monitoring and evaluation of the documents of the DDC board meetings of the current fiscal year,” said Dal Bikram Kandel, officer at the MoLD. “The DDCs should submit the relevancy and reasons for going against the existing laws.”

The available documents suggest that the local bodies were found violating the Local Self-Governance Act 2055 BS, Local Self-Governance Regulation 2056 BS, Financial Administration Regulation and Grants Operation Manual.

Also, the DDCs were found spending funds on negated

areas, using capital budget in recurrent heads, distributing funds to political parties, NGOs, fairs and festivals. It was also found the DDCs were spending huge budget on administra-

tive cost, government officials taking extra allowances and

selection of plans and programmes under pressure of

political parties.

Some DDCs distributed funds to construct fences,

provide vehicle fuel for ministers and organise convention of political parties, while other were found using up to 315 per cent of administrative cost, when laws have actually provisioned 25 to 40 per cent of

allocated budget.

Dinesh Kumar Thapaliya, spokesperson for the MoLD, said that they would take appropriate action including

departmental action as per the rules if the DDCs failed to garner satisfactory reasons. “The lack of elected representatives in the local bodies for about a decade has added woes to the problem of irregularities,” he said.

There are 75 DDCs, 3,915 village development committees and 58 municipalities across the country. The government allocates about Rs 53 billion including about Rs 15 billion from foreign aids annually for the

local bodies.

However, the annual monitoring reports by the Ministry of Local Development reveal rampant misuse of funds and bad governance due to frequent

involvement of political parties at the local level

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