Provincial assembly committees—which help to make the government accountable over the issues of public importance and monitor the government activities—in Karnali Province are without leadership for a long time.

The roles of provincial assembly committees are even more crucial when the assembly is not in session. Political analysts and stakeholders started raising questions regarding the accountability of government activities due to ineffective roles of the assembly committees which are without chiefs.

Provincial assembly committees are without chiefs for the past seven months. According to the provincial assembly secretariat, the Public Accounts Committee, the Finance and Natural Resources Committee and the Social Development Committee are currently without heads.

Four bills are stuck in various committees and the deliberation process on them has not yet begun due to the absence of heads. Kalyani Khadka, a provincial assembly member elected from the CPN (Unified Socialist), said the government started working in an arbitrary way by taking advantage of the ineffectiveness of provincial assembly committees.

“The assembly committees should remain active even when the provincial assembly is not in session. But here, in Karnali province, the committees are effectively non-functional, allowing the government to work arbitrarily without oversight,” said Khadka. She claimed that the provincial government made the assembly committees without chiefs deliberately. “The chief minister, when he was in the opposition, used to raise questions in the assembly stating that the government was lost. He seems to have forgotten everything after being elected chief minister,” she added.

The Finance and Natural Resource Committee has been without a chief since April while the Social Development Committee and the Public Account Committee are sans chiefs for the past three months. Jit Bahadur Malla of the CPN-UML was the chairman of the Public Account Committee who resigned three months ago. Similarly, Nepali Congress leader Ghanashyam Bhandari and CPN (Maoist Centre) leader Durga Bahadur Rawat led the Social Development Committee and the Finance and Natural Resource Committee respectively. They resigned from their posts before they were appointed as ministers.

The committees’ works have come to a standstill in the absence of chiefs. All the works regarding the evaluation of ministries and agencies have been affected.

“Meetings of the provincial assembly committees have not been convened for a long time. These meetings usually see participation of line ministers, who provide government assurances. Such interactions help ensure government accountability. But this process has stalled,” rued Bindaman Bista, provincial assembly member of the Maoist Centre.

According to Dal Rawal, chairman of the former provincial assembly member forum in Karnali, the assembly committees should be more effective than the assembly itself regarding regular businesses and other issues. “The provincial assembly should promptly elect the chiefs and make them effective,” said Rawal, stating that the provincial assembly’s Speaker should take initiative to elect chiefs in the committees.

Karnali’s provincial assembly regulations allow the eldest member of the assembly committee to act as interim chief. “But this provision has not been implemented. The political parties should take the initiative to fill the vacant committee chief positions. A prolonged vacuum in leadership is not good,” said Jibaraj Budhathoki, secretary at the Karnali Province Assembly Secretariat.