Nepal’s private sector seems to have extracted every possible evils from our debasing political environment. The country’s business community is always expected to set good examples of best practices, leadership, magnanimity and vision that could be replicable even by politicians. Sadly though, these supposedly rich, learned, professional and responsible business leaders themselves seem determined to ruin umbrella business organizations like FNCCI (Federation of Nepalese Chamber of Commerce and Industry) and NCC (Nepal Chamber of Commerce), thus far largely saved from the meanness of dirty politics.

All but one out of a dozen former presidents of FNCCI boycotted the 47th AGM of the organization held in the first week of April, allegedly protesting the ‘unprofessional’ behaviour of the incumbent President. The past presidents are also ex-officio advisers to the organization and, failure of the entire brigade to turn up in the event was indeed an unwanted precedent.

Existence of lobbies in such organizations is but natural. Albeit, it is the responsibility of the leadership to accommodate the differing views within organization and address the genuine concerns of members. But the opponents argue that ever since his election, the present president has been inaccessible and impervious to the well-being of the institution. Without going into the exercise to verify the truth behind this claim, it can be safely concluded that the leaders of the chambers are finding it hard to reconcile their businessman traits (that in Nepal requires being selective in socializing) and social leader traits (that virtually requires complete sacrifice of private life).   

Likewise, 60th AGM row in the country’s oldest organization of the business community, NCC, has invited shameful hostilities between the lobbies of President Suresh Basnet and Vice-president Lokmanya Golchha. It went to the extent that the Golchha lobby held a separate press conference in early April alleging Basnet of taking the entire organization for ransom. Before that, the office was padlocked for almost a month, ironically, at the behest of the incumbent president. 

Both in FNCCI and NCC, lust for clinging to power who are already in positions or ousting the incumbent by any means by the opponents are at the heart of all these misadventures. All of them seem to have forgotten the values of democracy and importance of fairness in the game of ballots. Equally so, those in the hot seats have failed to uphold the dignity their respective positions deserved. Instead, they seems to have either believed in no-inclusive decision making or use of extraneous tricks other than winning the heart of own constituencies to remain in or gain crucial positions. This is exactly what our business leaders have learnt from our politicians and political culture -- undermine democracy and dance haywire, shamelessly in public.

 This is perhaps the time the country’s private sector came up with some prescription to revive sluggish economy. The GDP growth rate for this year is predicted to less than 3.5 percent and contribution of the manufacturing and formal business sector is even negligible. This unimpressive performance of the economy without any strikingly visible barrier to growth manifests even cancerous trend of gradual decay. It is the private sector that should now come-up with a blue-print for its rescue.

There are other more serious business for business leaders than political-type bickering among themselves. The private sector has constantly blamed to the unstable and hostile politics for Nepal being unable to attract the foreign investment, among other. But, international business community has started to doubt on the very credentials of Nepal’s private sector. One of the crucial questions asked is why the real sector has chosen not to be transparent and failed to even register in the stock market. This issue entails other number of inherent deficiencies in our corporate sector. And, one more deficiency is added spatially by the growing unprofessionalism and animosity within the community, that must be contained and corrected, sooner the better.