Nepal’s private sector has been constantly undermined, ignored or often humiliated by the State for long. Even after restoration of peace seven years ago, things hardly changed for better. So much so, the newly installed ‘election’ government too doesn’t seem much concerned about predicaments the business and industry sectors of the country are currently faced with.

All communist party literatures, most prominently of the Maoist Party, unrelentingly criticized the form of the government what their jargon said to be of a ‘bourgeois comprador’, the state of the State run by the rent-seeking elites and bureaucrats. But it is the very Maoist Party which played the most crucial role to form the present government comprising of only former bureaucrats. This was a complete anti-thesis to their sworn doctrine. And, it was but natural for ‘bourgeois compradors’ not to listen to the private sector entrepreneurs.

In the run up to form new government, headed by incumbent Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Khil Raj Regmi, four major political parties signed an 11-point agreement. Sadly, that document didn’t incorporate even a single sentence regarding the sorry state of the economy and prescription to reinvigorate it. FNCCI, the umbrella organization of Nepali businesses and industries, however, protested against this apparent apathy of the country’s major political forces and supposedly apolitical government now at the helm of affairs. But materially not much change seems to be in the offing.

Similarly, next thing the Maoists after coming to power in 2008 professed was protecting the ‘nationalist’ businesses. But, in practice, it is the only nationalist businessmen and industrialists that they have selectively made to suffer. The business people who had created businesses and had links to other countries, primarily India, have already shifted to their businesses or wealth. Only those who chose to work here and die here, or the most nationalist ones, are subjected to suffer day in and day out. And, nobody cares.

Surprisingly, political parties other than the Maoist have also maintained a suspicious silence on economic issues like increased infringement of private property rights and rapidly deteriorating business climate of the country. The present government is also likely to shirk away from responsibility of doing its bit in the guise of just being an election government. The fact is: the economy should be a continuous priority regardless of any nature of government that comes in or goes out, with whatever pretext. But, alas; this has not been the case for Nepal.
 
One of the major concerns of the private sector has been the politically protected, rampant corruption in the financial administration of the country. But, the Maoist Party now seems to have engaged in indirect form of extortion by using highly corrupt bureaucrats. One of the recent media reports suggests that a few notably corrupt officials under political protection of the Party are deliberately inflicting pain on some businesspersons by making them to make rounds to the revenue investigation office, without framing any charges. Maoists’ pick to head the anti-corruption constitutional body-the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority- has surprised many.

These things have longer repercussions in the country’s business environment. Nepal is already in the red area of the ‘doing business’ and ‘private property rights’ indices. According to an estimate by the business community, some 150,000 large or medium level Nepali business households have fled the country to settle and start business abroad during last one decade.

These realities must be of concern to the parties that provide leadership to the country. But, now it appears as if improving the country’s businesses climate is not in any party’s agenda. This also implies that the Nepali private sector, at least for some time to come, have to depend on whatever little they can do on their own and contribute to make things better. One of the appropriate medium of such contribution could be the elections themselves where they can advocate and vote for the party which is better in terms of creating a business-friendly climate in Nepal. They can’t just keep complaining and doing nothing meaningful.