Daily administrative and development works of Aathabis Municipality in Dailekh have come to a halt in the absence of the Chief Administrative Officer for the last one and a half months.

The locals say that the office, which was reeling under pressure for a lack of technical staff, has become severely affected since the departure of the last Chief Administrative Officer, Kulraj Subedi.

Man Bahadur Shahi, a local, said that the people’s representatives instead of seeking solutions to the vacuum created by several vacant administrative posts in the office are engaged in disputes among themselves. “The local representatives are busy in political bickerings, and haven’t put any effort into helping solve the crisis the municipality faces,” he asked.

According to him, locals such as himself are facing hardships while receiving government services due to the absence of ward secretaries in ward offices.

“Even the employees who arrived in the local unit after employee adjustment have not started their works citing the absence of the chief administrative officer,” said Gokarnanath Yogi, acting chief administrative officer, who is also the chief at the education department of the municipality.

Since the transfer of Subedi, the government has not sent another official to fill the vacant post. There are 47 posts for permanent employees and 14 for temporary employees in the municipality. “But currently there are only 27 employees (who have been appointed on contract basis) and 14 permanent employees. Most of the works have come to a halt, as there’s no one to execute the work,” said Yogi. The Chief Administrative Officer is responsible to handover authority to his subordinates.

In the current fiscal year, the municipality has allocated a budget of around Rs 430 million for administrative and development works. The municipality has spent Rs 9.3 million under general expenditure whereas the capital expenditure budget remains untouched even five months into the current fiscal year. Yogi said that they haven’t been able to utilise the budget on time due to the vacant post of the Chief Administrative Officer. “The Chief Administrative Officer is the only one who has the right to mobilise the budget,” he said.

The municipality has selected around 300 development projects in the current fiscal year. But all of those projects have been unattended.

The municipal office has seen multiple instances of padlock due to interference from people representatives affiliated to different political parties who use the office as a means to push their political agenda forward, said Yogi. Khadkaraj Upadhayay, mayor of the municipality, however, said “We cannot work as expected due to the employees’ non-cooperation. We are tired of their behaviour. There are no ward secretaries in most of the wards. Because of this, locals are facing hardships while receiving government services and development projects have been left unattended.”