Poor implementation obstructing CIAA's success

Kathmandu, Aug 17- In order to achieve expected goals of the CIAA, the report suggests maintaining strong discipline in government offices, intensifying the role of other sub-ordinate anti-graft organizations such as National Vigilance Center, and developing effective mechanism.Most of the time of the Commission was spent on finding the reliability of the complaints, as it generally starts investigation on the basis of complaints that were filed at the office. But, it puts aside 70-90 per cent complaints while 35-54 per cent complaints are dismissed in the preliminary stage. As per the provision of the Constitution of 1990, the Commission has published 14 annual reports so far and it has achieved 85 per cent success in the cases that were settled by the court in the recent years.
Pro-Public, a good governance lobby, and Institute of Local Governance Studies (Inlgos) on Tuesday stressed on the need for strong and effective implementation of mechanisms for the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) to be successful.
Presenting a comparative study of CIAA's annual reports issued in the last six years, Bamshidhar Ghimire of Inlgos said that following the second amendment of CIAA Act three years ago its activities and success rate has increased tremendously.
"But poor implementation has become a serious challenge for the CIAA to yield expected goals in its anti-corruption drive," he said.
According to the report, complaints on corruption by government officials has increased by 2.5 times and the rate of filing of charge-sheets has also increased significantly.
The CIAA has been successful in more than 84 percent of the cases filed at the Special Court. "However, over 200 cases are still sub-judice at the Special Court as the court fails to give decisions on time," the report reads.
The annual report of the Commission has stated that the ratio of complaint registration was high against the Ministry of Education and Sports. There were 1,430 complaints against the Ministry during the last seven years followed by the Ministry of Local Development and Land Reform with 1,301 and 1,065 complaints respectively.There were 839 complaints against Home Ministry, 761 against Forest and Soil Conservation, and 751 against Finance Ministry. The complaints against Ministry of Health, Ministry of Physical Planning and Works, Agriculture and Cooperatives, Commerce and Industry, Water Resources and Information and Communications were in decreasing order.