Except for one or two, all 36 public enterprises (PEs) of Nepal are in huge losses. Dairy Development Corp is already in milk which is rotting and stinking. The Gorakhkali Tyre has become flat. National flag carrier NAC, has lost the nose. (Nac in Nepali means nose). Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) has already burnt the midnight oil. Nobody knows how ensured is Rastriya Beema Sansthan, the state-owned insurance company, as it its accounts are not audited for almost a decade.

Should we talk about Kathmandu Upatyaka Khanepani Ltd. (KUKL)? Ordinary Nepali people get confused reading KUKL as it sounds like KAKAKUL which means a legendary bird that is always thirsty. Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), that has monopoly on power trade is running in loss as it is busy in trading power at political circles than in power circuits.

So far Nepal Telecom is proving itself one exception as it is still in profit. However, it too has started trembling after the entry of a heavyweight competitor in the form of Ncell. Then there is a cigarette company PE which is blowing in the air. Similalry, the two cement PEs are all set to kick the dust.

But the government is determined to continue keeping these enterprises by funneling money they need to survive. The vowed purpose is evident. The political parties who run the governemnt in turn are in fact waging employment revolution in the country by appointing their cadres to various positions in the PEs. In doing so, the parties have effected another revolution: they have waived the traditional and thus regressive criteria of education and experience to get a job in these PEs. Only one criterion that needs to be fulfilled is that one must be a blind-supporter of the political party in power. So, one eighth-grader runs NAC and a head clerk is recently made GM in National Trading Ltd.

All these great things have been possible only because of our revolutionary Prime Minister. As it became clear that his party cadres are no more going to get salary from the government coffer, he was quick to place many of them in the PEs as well as private sector corporate houses. Our PM had announced his determination to develop the country very fast with a leap-frogging pace, when he was the Finance Minister some years back. According to his philosophy, you can develop the country by hook or by crook. And for Nepal he has picked-up only the latter part of the model i.e. by crook or crooked ideas.

To develop an economy you should first open factories or firms and create employment. For that you need to import machines and raw materials and construct roads and buildings. For that you need a lot of money. Since the Nepali government does not have any money left after paying the party cadres in any possible pretext, the government has adopted this short-cut route to development through PE, just as a replica of Panchayat hay-days under King Mahendra.