The Public Procurement Management Office (PPMO) has blacklisted as many as 51 firms for the last 11 months for flouting rules and regulations regarding procurement and construction. Those companies were involved in civil works, consultancy and supply of goods. The PPMO has maintained that 38 civil firms, eight goods suppliers and five consultancy firms were blacklisted by the office as of November-end. As per the, law if any company that has won the government contract and does not complete the work within the deadline set or does not maintain the quality of work the PPMO has the right to blacklist the concerned firm for a period of one year or up to three years as per the nature of works and seriousness of the work flouted. It means that any blacklisted firm cannot compete in the government bidding during that period  unless such company is delisted from the blacklist. The main objective behind imposing such a punitive ban is to ensure that the public works have been carried out as per the specifications and conditions mentioned in the tender call. But most of the construction companies do not abide by the rules and try to influence the decision-makers through bribery. After receiving more complaints from the public and several parliamentary committees about the sub-standard public works, the PPMO is now gearing up to develop guidelines to monitor the works of the construction firms, process of blacklisting and removing them from the list. Once the guidelines come into operation the competent authority will have a tool make the construction firms more responsible and accountable while carrying out  public works. As of now the PPMO has been blacklisting such firms as per the recommendations of the implementing agencies of the concerned ministries. However, the PPMO cannot continue blacklisting any construction firm if it challenges such decision at the court of law and gets a court ruling in its favour. There is a general tendency that the contractors win the public contracts on the basis of lowest bidding as per the Public Procurement Act, which clearly says that the contract should be awarded to the lowest bidder. However, the lowest bidder does not maintain the quality of work as specified in the contract. It all happens in cahoots with the top layers of bureaucrats, ministers and technical hands of the concerned ministries and implementing agencies. It may be recalled that the contractors who were invited at a parliamentary committee meeting for discussions about ways of improving quality of works had disclosed that they had to keep aside at least 15 percent of the bidding amount for bureaucrats and concerned ministers as kickbacks. If that is the case, how can one expect quality works from a lowest bidder whose margin of profit has to go into the pockets of decision-makers? This is the main reason why the construction firms do not maintain the quality of works and complete them on time. They resort to variation orders citing one or the other reason for not being able to complete the tasks on time. The unholy nexus between the contractors, bureaucrats and politicians must be broken to improve the work quality. Good for hotels Small and medium sized hotels in the remote parts of the country are doing comparatively better during the elections. Different parties and election candidates have been putting up there for holding of election related events such as promotional campaigns and seminars. The economy of the country does comparatively better during the elections if past experiences are to go by. The movement of people in the second phase of the upcoming provincial and parliamentary elections has boosted the business of hotels. November is the month which sees the most tourism activities. This year the flow of tourists has been lower on this month due to the impending elections and security concerns. However, tourist standard hotels are registering an occupancy of 70 per cent thanks to the domestic tourists. So far, this year’s tourist arrivals have been recorded at 750,000. Therefore, it is unlikely that Nepal would be hosting a million tourists this year as it aims to. The government had endeavored to host a million tourists in 2011. The target has yet to be met.   Tourist arrivals are expected to grow after mid-December by when the election related activities would be over.