" Ministers are administered the oath of office to maintain secrecy, failing which they have to resign on the ground of morality. But morality is person-specific, and it depends on whether the person realises it or not. The finance minister was evading this issue, but his stand collapsed miserably after facing a walk-out threat from the UML in the House"
First, the defiance and then the resignation from his post by the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has continued to hit the news headlines around the globe. In Nepal, the political scene was marked by a similar act of initially refusing to resign and then stepping down by the Finance Minister, Janardan Sharma.
Johnson had been facing stiff opposition from within his own party for several of his political fumbles. The most notable was the extravagant dinner party that he threw when the country was under lockdown due to the spike in coronavirus cases. The loss in the local elections further dented his position. Victory in the no-confidence motion with a slim majority provided a temporary relief, but the loss in the following bye-elections again flared up, what was otherwise a healing political injury.
It then triggered a wave of political relinquishments, which came in trickles first with the renunciation of office by Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javed, but later in torments with 43vacations one after another.
Johnson has folded into a caretaker Prime Minister, but the opponents do not want to see him even in this reduced capacity.
Here in Nepal, Finance Minister Sharma had to finally bow down to the inevitable by offering his resignation over the allegation of letting an outsider dictate changes in the taxes of several items in this year's budget. The Unified Marxist-Leninist (UML) raised this issue, referring to the Closed Circuit Television(CCTV) recording, but it fell on the deaf ears of the finance minister.
In the meantime, the news of the erasure of the CCTV added fuel to this fire. The finance minister said that he was offering his resignation to facilitate the investigation by the Parliamentarian Committee set up to bring the facts into the open.
Ministers are administered the oath of the office towards the maintenance of secrecy, failing which they have to resign on the ground of morality. But morality is person-specific, and it depends on whether the person in question realises it or not. The finance minister was evading this issue, but his stand collapsed miserably after facing a walk-out threat from the UML in the parliament and later suggestions from the coalition partners to leave.
In early Nepal, such a problem did not exist. Because the budget allocation was made public on stone inscriptions. Accordingly, one can see the early 7th-century Hadigaon and Lele inscriptions of the Amsu Verma regime of the Licchavi period, where the yearly allocations have been mentioned. The imposition and reduction of taxes were also mentioned in such inscriptions.
Accordingly, one can see how in the year 249 BC, Emperor Ashok relieved the people of Lumbini village of one-eighth of the tax they were paying after he visited Lumbini, the birthplace of the Buddha.
Budget leakages have been few and far between in different countries round the globe. In Britain, in the year 1936, JimmyThomas stepped down from the ministerial post as well as the House of Commons after he revealed budget proposals to Sir Alfred Butt, his conservative Parliamentarian. Similarly, another minister, Hugh Dalton, resigned in the year 1947 for revealing the budget.
In India, in 2017, the Finance Minister of Kerala, T M Thomas Issac, was asked to resign after the publication of the budget highlights in the media. Issac got a new lease of life after finding one staff guilty, who was immediately removed from his post.
In Nepal, Finance Minister Ram Sharan Mahat had resigned, but not over budget leakage. He faced an allegation with regard to foreign currency ownership, following which he resigned in 1997 to facilitate a judicial investigation. He was again reinstated in his position after being found innocent by an investigating committee.
Sharma had suddenly attained celebrity status after bringing the years-long dark load-shedding era to an end. A similar performance was expected from him on the economic front.
Unfortunately, his activities as the finance minister left much to be desired. Firstly, he ran into rough weather with the Governor of Nepal Rastra Bank, Maha Prasad Adhikari, by suspending him for no rhyme or reason at a time of the country's cautious movement on the precipice of economic downturn.
As expected, Adhikari was reinstated after the Supreme Court ordered not to take any action. Sharma should have resigned on the basis of morality right then.
Sharma, however, continued to stick to the chair, ignoring the writing on the wall. He presented a mediocre budget, which was expected to be a saviour of the country's deteriorating economy. On the contrary, several lapses were visible in the budget. The interference by an outsider on the taxes created an uproar in the parliament, with demands that the CCTV recording be made public.
The information that the recording of the CCTV was deleted proved to be the last nail in the coffin of the finance minister.
There are some interesting similarities and dissimilarities in the two resignations - one by the prime minister of Britain and the other by the finance minister of Nepal. Both the leaders allegedly lacked propriety, competence and seriousness in their dealings.
Moreover, both of them vehemently opposed the call for resignation in the beginning.
But both the leaders surrendered to the unavoidable in the end.
The dissimilarities are that the British prime minister was abandoned one after another by his fellow party members like a sinking ship. In the case of Sharma, he enjoyed the support of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and his party leader Prachanda till the end.
People are anxiously looking forward to the election of a new leader of the Conservative Party, who will replace Johnson in Britain. Here in Nepal, eyes are all centred on the report of the Investigation Committee which will make or break the political career of Sharma.
A version of this article appears in the print on July 11, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
