Kathmandu, February 2:

CPN-UML leaders today advised Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal to issue a limited number of essential ordinances only after consulting with coalition partners and the opposition.

“The government should take other parties into confidence even if it intends to issue some urgent ordinances,” Madhav Kumar Nepal, UML’s former general secretary, told mediapersons after a meeting with the PM. He also enquired the PM about the number of ordinances that the government wanted to introduce after the parliament was prorogued.

PM Dahal is believed to have told the UML leaders that the government wanted to issue ordinances on Cases of Disappearances, Investment Board and Special Economic Zone.

Nepal said he advised the PM to consult with rights bodies, including the National Human Rights Commission, before introducing the ordinance on disappearances. “We have got a copy of the ordinance on disappearances and we will give our suggestions once we go through it,” Nepal said. He said they also drew the government’s attention to General Administration Ministry’s move to transfer large number of civil servants against the Civil Servant Act. He said any civil servant who is 50 years old or more cannot be transferred to remote places without his/her consent.

The UML leaders also advised the PM to give continuity to the existing provision on government scholarship for poor and meritorious students. A Bill on Scholarship (third amendment) 2009, which could not be passed, has given no space for scholarship to poor and meritorious students pursuing higher studies. “It is an irony that a party which claimed to have raised voices for the poor section of society has scrapped scholarship facility to poor and meritorious ones,” he said.

Nepal said they also raised objection with the PM to the Maoist monopoly in appointments in recently formed commissions such as the Land Reforms Commission and Commission on Freed Kamaiyas.

On the row over adjustment and rehabilitation of the Maoist fighters, Nepal cautioned the PM to follow the principle of consensus and letter and spirits of previous agreements — Comprehensive Peace Accord, Interim Constitution and Agreement on Monitoring and the Management of Arms and Armies.