State Affairs and Good Governance Committee Chair Khatiwada resigns

Kathmandu: Ramhari Khatiwada, Chair of the State Affairs and Good Governance Committee under the House of Representatives, has resigned from his post.

Requesting time during today’s meeting of the House of Representatives, Khatiwada announced his resignation as committee president, realizing his responsibility, as the word “responsibility” was used in the report, even though the parliamentary investigation report did not find him guilty.

Stating that he has been adamant that a cooling off period should be implemented for government employees from the beginning and will continue to be so in the future, he expressed confidence that the Civil Service Bill will be passed by the National Assembly with a provision to implement a two-year cooling period.

He said that despite a lot of pressure and influence during the drafting of the bill, a provision of a two-year cooling period for government employees was unanimously included.

Stating that the report on the bill was prepared against the legislative intent of the State Affairs Committee, he said that employees of the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs and the Ministry of Federal Affairs were involved in writing the report.

He admitted that even though the error in the Civil Service Bill was not his fault or that of the members of the State Affairs Committee, it was a weakness not to look into the bill in depth in the final form.

He also pointed out that government employees should not be given constitutional and diplomatic appointments immediately after retirement, as doing so would affect the functioning of the government and could lead to wrongdoing while remaining employees for future positions.

The parliamentary inquiry committee had concluded that there were serious errors in the report on the Civil Service Bill passed by the State Affairs Committee.