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Oli’s chief advisor: NCP isn’t obliged to heed task force’s recommendation on MCC

Bishnu Rimal

Kathmandu, June 18

Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s chief political advisor Bishnu Rimal has said the ruling Nepal Communist Party is not obliged to consider the recommendations of a task force formed for studying the Millennium Challenge Corporation grant agreement while making a decision on whether to support the deal in getting endorsed by Parliament.

Rimal’s statement has reinforced the party is sharply divided over whether to clear the decks for the 2017 agreement.

The division was seen when the three-member task force that the party formed to resolve the issue also could not forge consensus while submitting its report in February. Whereas two members–Jhala Nath Khanal and Bhim Rawal–said endorsing the agreement and implementing it without any amendments could be against national interests, the third member, Pradeep Kumar Gyawali, insisted the country could benefit from the grant.

Now, Rimal argues the party is not obliged to heed the report because there was not an agreement.

In an interview with Onlinekhabar, Oli’s confidant says, “I do not think the report is a binding document. They did not write one report after dividing votes between them. They just wrote two reports and submitted.”

Further, the report could be ignored as the task force could not complete its task in the assigned 15 days, he argues.

Rimal also views, “We should have considered it as a development project, but efforts were made to politicise it. Whenever politics is mixed with development, it will be difficult to conclude anything.”

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