National
Locally recruited staff get primacy over ones appointed by Centre
The city of Dharan has been organising Mayor Cup Olympic, a 13-day sporting event, in collaboration with the City Sports Development Committee.Prithvi Man Shrestha
The city of Dharan has been organising Mayor Cup Olympic, a 13-day sporting event, in collaboration with the City Sports Development Committee.
But it was not easy to hold the sporting extravaganza as the sub-metropolis could not use its own funds due to the absence of chief administrative officer, without whose signature a city cannot release budget. Dharan is without chief administrative officer after Suman Ghimire, city’s former administrative head, was transferred on October 18.
“We had to borrow Rs1.8 million from friends to hold this sporting event,” said Manju Bhandari, deputy mayor of Dharan. “We borrowed money even to run the campaign against gender-based violence that started last week.”
Bhandari, who is also handling the task of mayor following the death of Tara Subba, said the city has also failed to distribute allowance to elderly people and pay its own staff without chief administrative officer.
Besides, he said the works related to tender and awarding contracts for development projects have also been stalled.
Officials say the city is bearing the brunt of Ghimire’s acrimonious’ transfer as a result of dispute between him and the elected representatives over the promotion of locally recruited staff.
Just before Ghimire’s departure, the city authority had decided to promote locally recruited officers considering that they had not been promoted for years in the absence of elected local governments for 15 years. But Ghimire had reservations on the decision as the law does not permit the promotion without Federal Civil Service Act.
“After Ghimire refused to sign on the decision of the city, he had to depart from here,” said Bhandari.
The city’s elected representatives are of the view that the Local Level Operation Act allows them to promote its staff. In the jurisdiction defined in the law, the task of promotion has also been bestowed to the local government. Bhandari said the city had to promote those staff, and not doing so would have been an injustice against them.
The decision also comes as a response to strong lobbying from locally recruited staff.
With the government seeking to increase a grade for civil servants going to province and the local levels during the staff adjustment through Staff Adjustment Ordinance, there is fear among locally recruited staff of further marginalisation, according to the government officials.
Maniram Rai, city spokesperson, admitted that lobbying from the staff recruited by erstwhile local bodies was the reason behind the promotion and the subsequent tussle with Ghimire.
“They had complaints about lack of promotion for a long time,” Rai said.
According to officials at the Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration, the staff mobilised by the federal government at the local levels are not getting enough support from the locally recruited staff in many local units. “In the past, the staff recruited by the local bodies had major say in running the local governments, and losing that authority is being reflected in the form of non-cooperation,” a senior ministry official told the Post.
There are around 21,000 local staff recruited by the erstwhile local bodies across the country, according to the ministry.
Considering the influence of locally recruited staff at local levels, the elected representatives cannot ignore them, according to the ministry officials.
For example, Hetauda Sub-Metropolitan City recently returned an account officer and social department chief deployed by the centre, citing that the city already had staff recruited by local governments in those positions.
Hetauda Mayor Hari Bahdur Mahat said the city did not feel it necessary to receive the staff sent by the federal government for the positions which were not vacant.