After failing to bring in a supplementary budget as planned, the lame-duck Jhala Nath Khanal government on 12th April issued a so called White Paper, primarily to placate the senior partner in the coalition government the UCPN - Maoists. At the first place, the issuance of such policy paper was an untimely and unnecessary exercise. Only a few days earlier Deputy Prime Minister Bharat Mohan Adhikari had announced an energy crisis management plan in the legislature parliament. If anything the government had to add on, that could have been incorporated in that speech. But, Adhikari chose to organise a separate media event in his own ministry to elaborate the priorities of the government through this White Paper.

 

Effectively, the paper hardly contained anything new, thus defeating the very purpose of it. Like the earlier government, Adhikari also emphasised on sticking to the so called three pillar private, co-operatives and public pillars concept of the economy, which for all practical purposes is nothing more than verbose. In essence, cooperative is a private sector exercise. And public sector participating with other sectors private or cooperatives is an absolute anti-thesis to economic progress. The state must not be a partnerâ to a party who does the business. Therefore, re-emphasising on this obsolete platitude of partnership is absolute nonsense.

 

Second, the very intent was redoubtable and the procedures adopted were questionable. The hidden agenda of the White Paper was to ignite pork barrel spending in non-productive, politically designed programmes. Such an act was propelled by the Maoists wishful plan that the nearly Rs 22 billion remained idle in the government coffers could be used in the party's pet programmes.

 

As regards procedures, any new government surely has moral rights to outline its policies and programmes. But, by norm either it should come as the policy speech of the new prime minister, or the government could table it in the parliament. But a deputy prime minister organising a press meet in his ministry to make the White Paper public barely matched the gravity it warranted.

 

The White Paper has artlessly copied several ear-friendly programmes like helping in commercialisation of the agriculture and boosting the private sector business initiatives. But the promises this paper made could be translated into actions only when the parties in the government  the Maoists and the UML, first agree to tame their own trade unions. Interestingly, this White Paper hardly talks about the steps to address the present industrial anarchy due to irresponsible behaviour particularly of the ruling party-affiliated unions.

 

Also, it is a great irony that the White Paper instead of serving the government's intended purpose just exposed the ulterior motives of PM Khanal and his affiliates. For the economy, it simply could not leave a mark, let alone contribute positively, as it had no teeth and breath. Going deeper into Deputy PM Adhikariâ's intentions, he so deliberately skipped some of the hottest issues of the economy that needed immediate attention.

 

Adhikari very tactfully avoided making any commitment to take action against the businesses involved in forging VAT bills. Similarly, the White Paper did not have any unequivocal position to continue to adopt a free market economy and the government limiting its role not as the market participant but just an honest referee of the game.