 KIRAN PANDAY |
From the pulpit, the prime minister reiterated his conviction that double digit growth was possible, and his government would do all it could to encourage foreign investors. But as with everything else about the Maoists, their actions speak louder than words.
Even as the Maoist prime minister was finally swearing in the UML members of his cabinet this week, militant youth factions of the two parties were knifing each other in Dhankuta, which was under curfew for three days. The YCL and Youth Force are at daggers drawn over protection money from Kathmandu's casinos. This mafia-like gang warfare proves, if proof is still needed, that politics is criminalised at a time when their parent parties are members of the governing coalition.
We would like to give the Maoists the benefit of the doubt when they say they want to stop corruption. We want to believe that they are better placed than other coalition partners to launch Nepal on a development and growth trajectory. We understand that militant Maoist unions and other party hotheads may not be under direct control of the party leadership, especially the clique led by Finance Minister Baburam Bhattarai.
But the pattern of nationwide disruption of businesses, forced shutdowns, intimidation and extortion and threats against companies employing non-Nepalis is too systematic. Ultimately, this will undermine the Maoists' own plans for the economy.
Two weeks after the breach of the Kosi embankment, we now know the embankment did not breach because of heavy rains, but heavy politics. Two years of statelessness had bred militancy and criminality in the Tarai, directly affecting maintenance of the levees. The breach itself seems to have been a result of Indian contractors mining sand and boulders on the Kosi bed after paying off local militants. This is what made the river change course.
When the breach on the east embankment was noticed in early August, contractors dispatched to the scene for repairs were prevented from working because of threats and extortion by political activists from the Maoists and the MJF who are involved in a turf battle in Sunsari.
Finance Minister Bhattarai laid out his blueprint for the economy on Tuesday at the CNI meeting. He wants to "leap frog" development and launch massive job creation through investment in infrastructure.
But no one is going to invest here if his party can't clean up labour militancy and the criminalisation of politics. And even the investors who are here will leave.
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