No Oil Corporation (NOC) is a role model for all organisations in the country. NOC knows how to treat its employees. NOC will take care of its employees as long as they work together and steal and then sell fuel to pumps that will give them more chiya kharcha than the rest. As long as you don’t rock the boat and continue to help each other, NOC will reward its employees with bonuses.

Why can’t our state enterprises hire competent people? Even if the board hires one, the trade unions at these state enterprises revolt and padlock the offices of the new hakim saheb or make his or her life miserable by either slacking off or ignoring the directives of the people at the top. First of all, to get a job at one of our public enterprises you need to have as much source-force as possible. If you have the right connections then you are more than likely to get a job at one of our debt-ridden state enterprises. But most of the time, even if you know the right people, you will still have to fork out bribes to finally get the job. Where does all the money go? The fixer who knows how to get you the job will take his or her cut. Then he or she will have to pay the hakim sahebs, and then the hakim sahebs will then have to share his cut with the personal assistant of the mantri who heads the concerned ministry. The personal assistant then will keep some and give the rest to the mantri’s spouse.

NOC owes billions of rupees to our incompetent government and financial institutions, but it still wants to award its staff with bonuses. It plans to distribute Rs 900 million in bonuses to its corrupt staff.  Why can’t these eggheads pay off the debts, clear the accounts and then hand out money the remaining money? It seems that our state enterprises need to learn a thing or two about accounting and how to keep their books right.

It seems that every enterprise in this land, both public and private, have two different books. One book is needed to show the state and pay minimal or no taxes, and one for themselves, so that they can distribute the loot to their employees or partners. The two things common between our private and public enterprises is: evading taxes and voluntaringly paying our netas.

This is the only country in the world where the corrupt ones cannot be fired and are rarely punished with fines and jail term. Instead, they are proud to have managed to loot millions and even billions of rupees.

Gopal Khadka is not ashamed of his corrupt deeds. After all, he has paid millions of rupees in kickbacks to our politicians and he will continue to stay at NOC and make millions more for himself and our clowns. NOC does not care about international market prices. Oil prices are now at their lowest in more than a decade but our state enterprise continues to rip us off.  

It’s been more than four months and the people have been facing shortages of cooking gas and fuel. Our government officials and politicians continue to get fuel supplies while the people have to stay in queue for days and even months to get half-filled cooking gas and a few liters of fuel.

The problem is not only with NOC. Look at our No Electricity Authority (NEA). We continue to pay our utility bills even though we have to bear with the load shedding and once-a-week supply of water from our Khanepani folks. Our state enterprises and government agencies are all the same. We have yet to find a government agency that really works for the people. Our civil servants are not servants of the country. They are the masters. And we are the serfs.

Our netas are not leaders. They are loafers who will sell everything in this land for their own financial gain. It doesn’t make any difference to them that the country is going down the drain. After all, their princelings will get to enjoy the ill-gotten riches for generations. Majority of netas have sent their kids abroad for further studies. While most of the Nepalis struggle to pay their tuition fees, our princelings either get full scholarship or are funded by the blood money earned by their corrupt parents.

We expect our netas to be honest, compassionate and have high moral principles. Our expectations have never been met. Instead, we have a bunch of thieves masquerading as leaders. Our politicians are not worried about the hundreds of thousands of folks living in tents in the cold winter. Our politicians are not worried about the millions suffering from shortages of everything. Our politicians are not worried that with the way we are moving forward, we will probably have barely an hour of electricity a day in the future. Our politicians are only worried about how to make their next million.

Our student unions won’t stand up and take to the streets to demand an end to the political crisis. Baidya Ba and Biplab seem to be on vacation. Our three major political parties only know how to pull each other’s leg. The only person who is worried about the Nepali people seems to be our Gyanu Uncle. But he should have done his best then when he had the chance. If only Gyanu Uncle had then announced that he would not take a paisa from the state but instead dole out billions of rupees of his own money every year to the people then he would still be ruling the country. But it’s never too late.

Those who have been in power have never thought about their legacies. They seem to live in the present and enjoy it to the fullest. But how will history remember them?  All our clowns will be remembered as a corrupt band of thieves. We should ask the children of our Emirs: how do they feel about their parents and the luxurious lifestyle they lead by starving and suffocating the dreams and hopes of millions of Nepalis?