--By Madan Lamsal

 

Nepal is no doubt the land of uncountable miracles. The recently added one is that Nepal has substantially fallen down in corruption index. It is confirmed by none other than global corruption watch-dog, Transparency International (TI). It must be credible as we are constantly taught that whatever these global institutions influenced by the West say must be blindly trusted and followed. 

 

There are few occasions when falling is not only beautiful but desirable too, like falling in love and falling in corruption index. Therefore, Nepal is now enjoying the honeymoon of this miraculous fall from 139th position of the last year to 116th this year, out of 177 countries. The fall is miraculous for more than one reason. Nepal has constantly been branded as the country with a crisis in governance. For last couple of decades, our main industry has been to produce at least one prime minister each year. Sometimes, that too was very difficult like at present, and our last House was unable to produce even one prime minister in seventeen attempts. What it effectively says is: corruption can be reduced without governance. This is new theory, innovated in Nepal by TI.

 

But there must be some reason for this impressive improvement in Nepal's corruption ranking. Facts in hand are -- we had the Maoist government on the year the index data was collected and non-political government of bureaucrats is in Singhadurbar forts when it is made public. A former bureaucrat with the most corrupt reputation was appointed as the chief of constitutional commission CIAA. Unquestionably, all these factors must have singly or jointly contributed to this fall.

 

If so, there are one or two lessons for the most corrupt countries to take home from Nepal. First, political instability and Maoist government are the best panacea for controlling corruption. To begin, let Maoists of any country run a decade-long armed rebellion when the term bribery and grease-money dealing in petty sum disappears and every clandestine large endowment becomes 'voluntary donation to the revolution', even if the amount surrendered is at gun point. As the corruption index researchers pasturing on the surface hardly smell about these deals, consequently the index drops. The instability has direct anti-corruption effect. It is so simple. The instability helps to root-out all major business, production and service industries. Who pays the bribe? The private sector, i.e. the business people or industrialists. When they are gone, corruption is bound to reduce, substantially. So, if any country is committed to reduce corruption, make sure you have prolonged political instability. 

 

Second, political parties must stop forming the government of their own and they should install a fully bureaucratic government, hopefully headed by the incumbent chief justice of the supreme court of the country. This latter arrangement is crucial. When the government apparatus indulges in corruption, the road to judiciary to seek redressal is practically blocked, as the head of the government is also the head of the judiciary, simultaneously.

 

Third, if the anti-corruption institutions like CIAA are filled by the most corrupt bureaucrats in history, they are sure to make history either way. They know how not to make it more felt even if there were rampant corrupt practices. Or, it might also be the case that they are done with money, with their infamous fathers’ statues erected at the middle of busy highways, offsprings off to foreign countries and a couple of bank accounts in safe havens. So, the amount of money to be bribed in a poor country suddenly starts to look too small relative to their pride. Then they might rather pose as ascetics than avarices. The situation really contributes to reduce the corruption and helps country to ride on the freedom-from-corruption ladder, very soon.

 

Finally, with this astounding success, Nepal can think of setting up a training institute for those countries to run course on 'how to make a country corruption-proof and improve in the (anti?) corruption index!' This has business rationale too!