Nabin Kumar Ghimire, known for professional integrity during his 39 years in government service, has recently taken charge as Chief Commissioner of the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority. In his confirmation hearing, Ghimire said he had honestly discharged his duty as a civil servant and would continue to work in the same spirit so that after his two years tenure, people would not discount his contribution at the anti-graft body. Ram Kumar Kamat of THT caught up with him to know about his plans to control corruption and promote good governance. Excerpts:

How serious is the problem of corruption and what are the challenges you face?

Corruption is directly linked to good governance and ensuring good governance is a challenging task. There is widespread feeling that corruption is endemic and the state has not been able to crack down on it. Ensuring good governance entails the task of making government officers accountable, ensuring transparency in decision making process and providing easy, unhindered delivery of government services.

If there is a government employee in the local level or in a small office of the government in the local level, then the ordinary citizen or a farmer would like to see the presence of government in the government employee’s actions. The public forms opinions about the government on the basis of a government employee’s action. How to make that person’s behaviour accountable is closely associated with the concept of good governance. If the state fails to live up to its citizens’ expectations, then I think it is meaningless for the state to remain a state.

The major challenge today is to decide whether we should create a situation where people have to go to government offices for services or we should provide services at their doorsteps. The CIAA is closely watching this and we will definitely assist the government on this issue, but that does not mean we will compromise with corruption. Controlling corruption is challenging and we do not claim we will be able to fully control it, but we will make all out efforts. As a government organ, we will assist the government’s aim of achieving development goals and we will not obstruct the government’s plans. The CIAA’s next work plan will focus on these things.

At a parliamentary panel meeting recently, you talked about monitoring projects, including national pride projects. How will you go about it?

We will do two things. First, we’ll see if any contractor is holding up a project unnecessarily. We have told government bureaucrats to send us details of contractors who have not completed their construction work on time. We have made a format for keeping these details. Once we get the details of contractors, we will monitor each and every project. We will launch investigation if we deem it necessary and we will prosecute those responsible for corrupt practices. Our main aim is to promote completion of projects on time so that the public can benefit from the projects without having to wait for unnecessarily long period.

The next thing I talked about was monitoring national pride projects. This means we will take stock of all national pride projects with the sole objective of facilitating them. If bureaucrats think our monitoring will help them move the project ahead, we will do that and help them.

Improper conduct was removed from your office’s jurisdiction. What do you have to say?

We receive complaints about corrupt practices. Until we complete almost 60-70 per cent investigation, we do not know whether an act is improper conduct or corruption. This means if our probe reveals that something is not corruption but improper conduct, then we should be able to take action against such an employee. If we cannot take action against improper conduct for lack of jurisdiction, then it won’t be justifiable. All cases of irregularities might not be defined as corruption but there might be violation of established processes in all cases of irregularities. If we are given jurisdiction over improper conduct and irregularities as was the case in the past, then only can we aid the government’s objective of achieving goals of good governance.

I have told a parliamentary panel that problems of corruption in local levels are very worrying. Some may say that local levels are also going through transition as they are trying to enact their own laws, but this cannot be a pretext for tolerating corrupt practices in the local levels. Therefore, we have told the government to amend the relevant laws and give us jurisdiction over such matters. No other entity can match the capability of CIAA to ensure good governance.

How is the CIAA looking into allegations of corruption in local levels?

We have been looking into complaints of corruption filed against office bearers of local levels. The largest percentage of complaints the CIAA has received has to do with corruption in local levels.

Has the CIAA established its own engineering laboratory to check the quality of development projects?

Yes we have an engineering laboratory here which monitors the quality of projects. We also plan to establish two engineering laboratories — one in the eastern region and the other in the western region to check the quality of projects. We are finalising software to introduce automation in the CIAA. In the first phase, we will try to use minimum amount of paper for office work and in the second phase, we will try to make CIAA paperless. In the days ahead, CIAA’s work will be based on intelligence and technology. Our proposal for restructuring our organisation and adding employees has been endorsed by the government. We have made offices in all the provinces and we have also increased our strength and capability to execute the required jobs.

Do you have any plan to control corruption in the private sector?

There is a UN Convention against corruption to which Nepal is a party. The Parliament had endorsed this convention. Nepal has obligation to incorporate the provisions of the convention in domestic laws. We have tried to address the issue of corruption in the private sector in the CIAA Act (Amendment) Bill and Prevention of Corruption Act (Amendment) Bill that we have forwarded to the government. I also raised this issue in State Affairs and Good Governance Committee of the House of Representatives. I have sought lawmakers’ help to pass these two bills. Once these bills are enacted into law, we will be able to look into cases of corruption in the private sector.

This does not mean the CIAA will go into individuals’ houses to investigate corruption. This only means the anti-graft body will look into allegation of corruption and irregularities in private companies and firms because their actions directly affect the public. Let’s take the case of cooperatives. We often read in the media of cases of irregularities in the cooperatives. Our intention is to look into these institutions.

How do you check the tendency among government bureaucrats who want to get things endorsed by the Cabinet to prevent the CIAA from probing certain issues?

We have been raising this issue in all the annual reports we submit to the president. Our view is that issues related to public procurement should not fall under policy issues we cannot look into because the laws have designated the government official who can take decision on matters of public procurement. I have told the parliamentary panel that policy issues should be clearly defined.

CIAA is often blamed for sparing the ‘big fish’ and going after small cases of corruption. What do you say?

For us, all case of corruption are equally important. It is difficult to differentiate between big and small corruption case. We filed a case against an accountant in Itahari who was accused of embezzling Rs 620 million. Is that person a small or big fish? How to differentiate? We will file a case against a director general who has been accused of embezzling Rs 30 million. We have also filed case against somebody who is in the news for wrong reasons and there is enormous public interest in the case.

You had said during your confirmation hearing that CIAA alone would not be able to control corruption.

The thing I wanted to highlight was that unless citizens are aware of the problem of corruption, the slogan of controlling corruption will remain a mere slogan. Citizens should also refuse to bribe people, and government agencies should also monitor corrupt practices. When citizens are aware, government employees cannot indulge in corrupt practices. The message I want to give is that we can control corruption only when all sectors — civil society media, government agencies and the CIAA — work in close coordination. We have recently endorsed a concept paper and we want to carry out a national drive against corruption. We are trying to manage resources to run this programme. The sole objective of this programme is to promote people’s awareness and raise vigilance against corruption and corrupt practices.

In the past, the CIAA was accused of unnecessarily creating fear psychosis among public officers. What do you have to say?

We do not want to earn popularity by launching investigation into any case. The CIAA will minutely probe all the cases. In a recent discussion with government secretaries we told them we did not want to do anything that could portray us as a spoiler of the government’s development projects. We told them we would be available 24 hours to facilitate bureaucrats. That, however, does not mean we will tolerate illegal things.

In fact, government officers need to ensure that quality of projects are being maintained and legal processes are being followed. The condition of contracts must be followed and processes must be transparent. If these are fulfilled, there is no reason for them to fear anything. There is a tendency among civil servants to stop all work when a case is taken up by the CIAA. They must understand that when the CIAA receives a complaint, it must make some inquires. However, when we do that, they stop working out of fear of prosecution. They should not fear when we make inquiries. It’s been seven months since I headed the CIAA but I have not ordered my staff to bring original files from the concerned offices. Unless we tell civil servants, they do not need to stop work. Yet some people wrongly accuse us of being spoilers.