here is a brief schedule of the week, where I noted some examples of corruption. Plain and simple corruption.
1. Wednesday – a taxi fare for 3.2km – Chabahil to Kupondole Height took me Nrs 250. We went there to attend one of our friends wedding. Good wedding reception and yes, great food. Met ten of the forty-five friends from medical school. This is by all account, a good number. corruption – when coming back – the taxi fare suddenly inflated to Nrs.450. Same distance, Same sets of lanes, and roads taken; but somehow, within a span of two hours, we were to pay more. We ended up paying Nrs.300 on a very sour note.
2. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday – We were called back and forth to Ministry of Health, Department of Health Services and few other Government Departments – for the approval of an expansion that Team Nidan was looking forward for the Dhanauji COPC. There is a government Health post in the outskirt of Dhanauji VDC, which has a capacity of 15 beds, a minor surgical room, and posting of three to five medical personnel (doctors, nurses, and paramedics). Currently, for teh last five years, there is only one paramedic working there. Its in a state of coma, non-functional and dying. corruption – for the last 15 days, we have been asking around if Team Nidan could take a responsibility of this health post and make it a community managed health facility. No one in the ministry is ready to talk, or give us more information on this. There is already an example of this in Nepal (NyayaHealth) – a Public-Private-Partnership. Our goal is not to run a tertiary health center like Nyaya Health but to see a functional primary health post with community engagement. No one in all the health related departments of the government is ready to divulge more information on this. There answer was that, Nyaya Health was a foreign funded and with big money backing.
so being a junior doctor, with good intention, to improve on a thing that is already broken (health post) needs us to find a big player?
Infuriating ! every one in the health related department of the government is associated with one or two of his/her own NGO and INGO. I cannot yet prove it, but this is what I found. Every able and smart person has an affiliation with at least one source of outer income in the health ministry, and department of health sciences. A sorry state considering that this somewhat illegal.
3. Friday – This was the day when I listened to a BBC documentary about the richest non-profit in the world. I didn’t knew this, but FIFA is a non-profit.
corruption – yesterday I learned the deep dark secretes of Football in Nepal, and how corrupt it is. I will not be writing the whole story here, but it turns out few top brasses in Nepal Football Arena, are controlling everything. They do not let healthy competition, new ideas, new team, and better utilization of the international fund money that comes to Nepal. A huge amount of money is being siphoned into their personal coffers.
4. Sunday Newspaper – Its about the Government Officials and there transfer into different government department. The Undersecretary disputes between the Law Department Vs all the other government department. As soon after a Supreme Court Judge was made the prime minister of this country, there came a law by which, the undersecretary of the Ministry of Law (Law and Order Departments) could get transferred to any other department, easily, while the same was not true for anyone to get transferred into the Law Departments. corruption – creating a one way valve, for those in ministry of law, by which there personnel could get transferred to any other government department, while not letting anyone new come to there own place. This is some how justifiable by the fact that studying law is difficult.
My question is isn’t anything else, like medicine?
5. Bhatbhateni Superstores in Kathmandu – and the communist led unions in them. – These have created a difficult situation for the consumers like me, where I see the salesperson slacking of, and not on-par with what they should be. Its a ten minutes walk from my place to the nearest BhatBhateni Superstores in Chuccepati, but somehow, even with all the cheap and good stuff available there, I always come out spending less, due to the lack of salesmanship (or womanship) in there. corruption – The communist led union, does not let hire-n-fire rule get effective, and so sales people (mostly girls) are mostly dim-wits who have very less idea on what they are selling. Case in point, on Saturday I had to ask three salespeople three different things, and none could help me. This was with a slight swagger on their part, that they didn’t even looked worried or helpful enough. I also heard (from rumors) that the owner is frankly in a paralyzed state due to this corrupt union, which takes Nrs.100 per month from every staff, for whatever-they-think-is-right stuff. For me, I label it as Maoist Extortion (obviously, this may be my personal clouded judgement).
6. Janak Sikshya Sadan – (or something like that) is the national press in Nepal, responsible for publishing government/public school textbook. Its a huge body of people who have only one job every year – to provide books to each and every school children in government school (public and few private). Every year, there is a huge gap and demand of books that lasts for about two months, well into the new educational year. So a student basically needs to wait at most two month to get books. corruption – The press, has one whole year to print books, manage it, disperse it and make it available in April of every year. Somehow, every year (for the last 6-7 years) they are still printing books in late April and early May. “The commission game” runs big, and the system that takes care of distribution is worn out with corruption.
okay, this was my weeks corruption list. I can write more, but I think, these are the stuffs that disturbs me the most. Hope to find few more, and add up to the list.
momobites 