It was encouraging news that the government is finally on the course of shutting down the National Trading Ltd (NTL) after realizing that the NTL is eating up people’s tax paid in the name of meeting its operational costs which was supposed to be covered from its profit margin “Govt on course to shut National Trading Ltd” (THT, July 20, Page 1) rather than government pouring in it billions of rupees to keep it afloat.

It was running on a huge loss for  many years due to bad management and institutionalised corruption. There was no proper supervision and monitoring system from the government to ensure that the NTL was properly managed and run in a business-like manner.

It was not surprising to know that the NTL has outstanding loans amounting to Rs. 1.4 billion that it owes to the government and financial institutions. Why did the government have to wait for so many years to make the decision for its closure?

Likewise, there are other government-owned corporations which have been running monetarily under huge loss. Nepal Food Corporation, Agriculture Inputs Company and Timber Corporation, among others, are the white elephants of the government which should have been closed a long time ago.

It is known fact that these public enterprises remained to be the cadres recruiting centres of political parties. It could be the reason for the previous governments not wanting to shut down these enterprises.

It seems that the time has come for the government under the changed context to either completely close down these enterprises or merge them into one to act as the national supply company with redefined mechanism as mentioned in the 2016/17 annual budget of the government.

Even doing so, the government has to rethink whether merging into one will serve its purpose and the people since there are many private companies which are engaged in export-import business fulfilling the needs of the users.

Rai Biren Bangdel, Maharajgunj

Remittance

This is in reference to “Remittance inflow from Qatar likely to be adversely hit” (THT, June 21, Page 1). As a developing country Nepal depends on remittance, donation and foreign aids to maintain its balance of payment.

But due to diplomatic problems in Gulf countries and reduction in price of oil, remittance inflow is going to be low this year compared to the previous years.

Till date and many more years from now, we will be depending on  remittances as we have not been able to generate jobs within the country. Having abundant resources in hand is not enough unless they are better utilized for economic development and well being of the people.

Everybody knows that remittance is a short-live phenomenon and such trend needs to be replaced with job opportunity within the country with modern technology, knowledge and technical know-how.

Pushpa Moktan, People’s Campus