Kathmandu, February 7
The Parliament Secretariat has been pressing the government to provide it 20 more vehicles for quite sometime. It has pointed that there are no vehicles for chief whips of different political parties and chairs of parliamentary committees, among others.
Bharat Raj Gautam, spokesperson for the secretariat, said the Act on Pay and Perks for Parliament officials and Members of Parliament states that Parliament’s office-bearers and MPs should get vehicles. He said: We have to manage vehicles for these officials as per the law.
According to Gautam, the Parliament will have to make some vehicles available without delay. The House has not been able to arrange vehicles for Federal Socialist Forum’s chief whip Shivaji Yadav, Tarai Madhesh Democratic Party chief whip Brijesh Kumar Gupta and CPN-UML whip Gokul Gharti.
As per the Act, which the Parliament passed recently, government should provide vehicles to chief whips of parties with more than 10 Members of Parliament as well as chief, chief whip and whip of the main opposition.
Going by the Act, chief whips of the Nepali Congress, CPN-UML, CPN-Maoist Centre, RPP, Federal Socialist Forum, MJF (Loktantrik) and Tarai-Madhesh Democratic Party should get such vehicles.
Dor Prasad Upadhyaya, newly-elected chair of the Public Accounts Committee, is also in need of a vehicle. The Secretariat has demanded vehicles for chairs of Constitution Implementation Committee, Impeachment Recommendation Committee and Special Rights Committee.
The impeachment committee is yet to elect its chair, whereas the two other committees are yet to take shape.
A source at the secretariat said a search for two newly-appointed secretaries of the secretariat is also in progress. Efforts are on to get some vehicles that the Department of Customs has seized.
The source said the Secretariat, about a four months ago, wrote to the Ministry of Finance seeking 20 vehicles. There has been no pogress on that front. About two months ago, the secretariat wrote to the Ministry of Law demanding 20 vehicles.
These vehicles will cost around Rs 80 million, with a finance ministry official pointing that one such vehicle costs around four million rupees. Currently, the secretariat has 105 vehicles. The secretariat is auctioning 22 of them. Most of the vehicles are said to be more than eight years old. Monthly, the secretariat is said to be spending Rs 25,000 on each vehicle for their maintenance alone.
Leaders of various political parties, chief whips and parliamentary committee chairs have been using 26 vehicles. Secretariat officials, including secretary-general, have 17 vehicles at their disposal.
Now, the Parliament needs more vehicles for eight office-bearers.
