Nepali Times

As Dasain approaches, there are signs that things are limping back to normalitude with the installation of centerline steel fencing at Blubber Mahal to force politicians not to make illegal U-turns. What a relief it is to see that there is still optimism in the Department of Roads that movers and shakers in this city can actually be forced to abide by traffic rules and drive on the right side, which of course is the left side, unless you are the Banepa Bus in which case you can knock down the metal barrier along the centerline in the wee hours just before breathing your last.

The other sign that the wheels of democracy are turning at their own exorable pace is that Prime Monster Dubya IV has broken his own previous national record by inducting four new ministers to bring the total cabinet strength to 54. There are dark mutterings on the op-ed pages from chronic whiners who shall remain nameless, but Brave Lion has taken the bull by the horns because he knows that in a little more than a month his will be a caretaker government, and there is so much still left to be plundered but so little time to rake it all in.

Because of the size of this jumbo cabinet of wide-bodies there is standing room only at Singha Darbar. Many ministers don’t have offices with attached loos nor flagged SUVs, yet in the national interest they are willing to endure that extreme discomfort. We laud their sacrifice.

Despite that, the Minister of Short Supplies has hit the ground running to pick low-hanging fruit: he isn’t wasting time pursuing the elusive head of the Nepal Oil Corruption on his Rs3 Arab landscam to convert a national park buffer zone into a petroleum stockpile depot, rather he has gone after Darbar Marg shops which threaten Nepal’s sovereignty and territorial integrity by selling pricey Reeboks. Minister should give himself a medal.

Now that the country is soon going to be federified, the Ass has finally figured out what a bunch of geniuses the framers of the new Constitution are. All seven provinces will have their own State Assemblies, governments, bureaucracies, tea-makers, orderlies, cronies and peons, which will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs: effectively ending the need for Nepalis to migrate for work abroad. That is called killing two birds in the hand with one stone in the bush.

Across town, MPs in the soon-to-be prorogued Parliament also know their days are numbered, so they are busy voting themselves Dasain bonuses. Reps in the August House have only till end-September to award themselves posthumous pensions so they can keep on enjoying legislative perks in the afterlife.