Kathmandu — The government has announced that civil servants and employees working in any public institution who are found involved in political parties or political activities will be dismissed and declared permanently ineligible for future government service.
While presenting the government’s policy and programme for the fiscal year 2083/84 at the joint session of the House of Representatives and National Assembly on Monday, President Ramchandra Paudel stated that any employee engaged in political activities would face dismissal and disqualification from future public service employment.
The policy and programme further states that the civil service and other government services will be developed into neutral, impartial, and professional institutions to make service delivery and good governance more result-oriented. For this purpose, measures such as the abolition of trade unions, conflict-of-interest control mechanisms, indicator-based performance evaluation systems, and a “cooling-off” period system will be introduced.
The government has also proposed merit-based appointments in the civil service, quarterly evaluations of departmental and project chiefs, ethical testing mechanisms, the establishment of a Civil Service Board, and the inclusion of underperforming employees on a negative list. According to the policy, institutions will be evaluated as result-oriented and citizen-friendly through performance-based incentive systems.
Former Government Secretary Bimal Wagle commented that the proposed punishment of permanently disqualifying employees from future government service for involvement in political activities appears excessively harsh if applied uniformly.
According to him, such punishment may be appropriate for incumbent secretaries and joint secretaries, but it may not be justified for lower-level employees such as office assistants, drivers, clerks, and non-gazetted officers. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration stated that the provision was included in line with the principle that no government employee should participate in partisan political activities.
