‘Dissolve all party political mechanism’

Kathmandu, Dec 23, The Commission for Investigation of the Abuse of Authority Friday decided to write to the Local Development Ministry to dissolve all-party political mechanisms formed for running the works of the local bodies from the district to the village levels. It said that the decision to send a representative from a political party to form the local level political mechanisms based on the parties’ representation at the Constituent Assembly was against the constitution and existing law. The political mechanism, decided at the local development minister level, did not have any basis which made it responsible to the people, CIAA said, according to a press release. Working on complaints that the mechanisms were corrupt and ineffective in carrying out local development activities, the CIAA decided to write to ministry and the offices of the prime minister and the cabinet asking them establish local units by clearly spelling out their functions, duties, authorities and responsibilities. It also decided to write to the Local Development Ministry to develop a directive with guidelines specifying clear functions, duties, authorities and responsibilities of duly formed consumer committees, which stood for an overall representation of the local service receivers, and dissolve other consumer committees, and implement it in 15 days. The CIAA also decided to ask the concerned agency to create a mechanism for effective monitoring and evaluation of the work as per the guidelines. It also detailed the points to be considered in forming the consumer committees like inclusion, participation, political neutrality of members, and procedures for involving them in handling development works.