NC reminds PM Oli of risks of delaying statute implementation

Kathmandu, June 8

Senior leaders of the Nepali Congress today met Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli in Baluwatar and expressed concern about the delay in implementation of the new constitution.

Stating that taking decisions on issues related to statute implementation, including enactment of laws, is not regular executive work, the NC leaders urged the PM to take decisions by involving the NC and other opposition parties.

The NC leaders led by Sher Bahadur Deuba sought to prepare and follow a time-bound plan to bring election related laws and proceed with work to set up elected bodies, including federal and provincial legislatures and local bodies, said NC leader Ramchandra Paudel after the meeting.

NC leader Bimalendra Nidhi said the delegation told the PM that a new elected parliament had to be formed by 21 January 2018 as stipulated in the new constitution.

“Since many tasks have to be accomplished to meet the deadline and the government has not been sensitive towards that, we told the PM to proceed with the tasks by creating acceptable political environment,” Nidhi said.

The PM was reminded that a number of laws should be enacted to set up federal, provincial and local-level structures as per the new statute and since it was not a regular task to be handled only by the law ministry, the government should make the NC and other opposition parties participate in the process of drafting the laws.

All laws should be enacted in package and not separately, Nidhi said.

NC leaders told the PM that though Sher Bahadur Deuba was vice-chairman of the advisory committee of the National Reconstruction Authority, he had not been informed about the NRA’s activities.

“NGOs close to CPN-UML have been entrusted with reconstruction tasks worth billions of rupees. The authority has been made a forum for appointment of political cadres. We strongly objected against that,” Nidhi said.

NC leaders objected to the PM’s intervention in parliamentary and judicial affairs. “The PM tried to make the Parliamentary Hearing Special Committee defunct and impose political appointments in the judiciary,” said Nidhi.

The delegation urged the PM to control growing corruption, anarchy, crime, loot and the tendency to break laws by various actors and the government’s failure to curb the same, Nidhi said.

The PM did not give a concrete answer on how to address NC’s concerns although he expressed commitment to involve the NC in drafting laws related to statute implementation, according to Nidhi.

The PM said he would inform the NC about the NRA’s activities in future. He added that the disputed provisions of the parliament regulations would be settled through voting.

CPN-UML leader Subas Chandra Nembang said, “PM Oli is committed to taking the main opposition together on implementing the constitution and continuing talks.” The discussions were mainly focused on constitution implementation,” said Nembang.