National
Provincial parliaments, govt agencies understaffed
Ministry of General Administration (MoGA) had assigned 15 officials from administration and law group at Province 3 to run the Provincial Assembly (PA) meeting coordinating with those deployed from Federal Parliament Secretariat (FPS).Ministry of General Administration (MoGA) had assigned 15 officials from administration and law group at Province 3 to run the Provincial Assembly (PA) meeting coordinating with those deployed from Federal Parliament Secretariat (FPS). But hardly two officials had reached Hetauda, the temporary provincial headquarters on Thursday, the day the first PA meeting was held.
In their absence, the officials from the FPS had to work even at night to set the stage for the historic meeting.
“It was a challenge for us to complete the preparations for the meeting on time, for which we worked day and night,” said Roj Nath Pandey, acting chief of the Provincial Assembly Secretariat. “It will be impossible to conduct other meetings if we continue to have shortage of human resources.”
The other provinces are also understaffed at the moment.
Laxmi Ram Poudel, principal secretary of Province 7, said not even half of the total employees required to operate the parliamentary affairs smoothly have reported to work till date.
The province is holding its first PA meeting on Monday.
A study of the MoGA shows at least 2,000 employees are required for provincial assembly secretariat, council of ministers and secretariat of the governors. The central government has deployed hardly 600 employees, and most of them have not even reached their assigned provinces.
“The General Administration Ministry is working to deploy the number of required staff to all provinces,” said Shiva Ram Neupane, the ministry spokesperson.
The government has asked the civil servants to choose voluntary retirement if they do not wish to work at provincial level. The Civil Servant Adjustment Act passed in October envisions staff deployment for provincial government agencies within six months of the elections. But the Act has not been implemented due to lack of regulation.