Medals for Sale

Let us congratulate all those who received medals from our great communist government this week. This is the land where fake VAT bill byaparis get awarded with Supraval Janasewa Shree medal from the President. Yes, a tax evader gets awarded for evading taxes. I think we should release all criminals from our prisons and instead jail all hardworking, law-abiding citizens. After all, this government thinks those who voice their opinion are traitors. 

A person who has yet to clear his Nepal Medical Council (NMC) exams gets a medal as well for his role as a doctor in helping earthquake victims. I think somebody forgot to remind our government that one cannot call himself or herself a doctor unless one clears the NMC exam. And government officials who get those medals then get arrested a year later for corruption. I think we need to hold the so-called medal selection committee accountable. 

But of course, our thulo mancheys are never held accountable in this country. Only the small fishes get caught whereas the big sharks pay off or make a deal and go home. Whatever happened to our great Super Hero Lok Man Karki? We hear that he made billions from extortion but nobody is going to go after him anytime soon. 

And even now, our former CIAA commissioner Pathak Sir is not going to jail anytime soon even though he is caught on tape taking sweets. Isn’t it ironic that the thulo manchyes of the agency tasked to fight corruption are themselves busy extorting byaparis and civil servants and even netas? 

Somebody needs to remind our government that just because a byapari or a so-called social worker has the connection or has paid off folks that they should be awarded government medals. I think our government should be ashamed and apologize to some of the genuine folks who did receive the medals from our President for really contributing to the betterment of this country.

I think we seem to have lot of ‘fakers’ who get medals from our government. After all, this government is run by fake leaders who are actually free loaders. It would be nice if our country was run by fakirs instead. 

At least they would not loot us all and award medals, ambassadorship, seats of justice and other government positions to near and dear ones if they were fakirs because of their vows of poverty and renouncing all material stuff and relationships. But that’s  not the case with our netas who once had vowed to end corruption, poverty and everything that’s bad with our country. 

Now, they are in power and they are the ones who most engage in corruption, make the common citizens poorer every day and instead of good governance, they are busy misusing their power to make some dough at the expense of the taxpayers of this country.

This is the land where government land is sold to byaparis and the government can’t do a thing about it because the Land Revenue Office folks can’t find the documents to take action against the chors. And it’s time somebody remind the government that banning everything is not the solution to resolve our country’s problems. 

This country is not going down the drain because some folks want to play games online. This country is not going down the drain because some of us use social media to express our opinions. This country is not going down the drain because journalists write about business deals gone wrong. 

But this country is going down the drain because our politicians want to shut us up and continue to loot freely without being held accountable. This country is going down the drain because our civil servants extort contractors and common citizens and set aside commissions for the thulo mancheys. This country is going down the drain because of corrupt politicians and hakim sahebs. 

So what can we do to end corruption, eradicate poverty and minimize pollution in our land? We need to shame our corrupt buffoons. Our media wallahs should have a wall of shame in their websites or only write about corruption in our land instead of writing about ribbon cutting ceremonies and where our clowns meet at a resort to talk politics. It’s time for a black-out of anything to do with politics. Let us not give our politicians the space to spew venom or fool us all every time with their jokes.

We also have our own ‘fake’ journalists as well but of course, we will all have bad apples everywhere. But it’s about time our media wallahs really focused on investigative journalism and go after the big sharks and our civil society leaders should stop playing politics and fight against the chors of today. Where are our so called intellectuals who were not scared to stand up against a monarch but now are scared to fight against a thousand-headed monster?

Guffadi is a grumpy old man who blogs at guffadi.blogspot.com. You may contact him at maguffadi@gmail.com

Impossible Promises

Once again, our greatest Commie party on Earth is making impossible promises it can’t really fulfill. I think it is much easier to promise to send a Nepali person to Mars by 3000 AD than setting targets like achieving more than 10% economic growth and raising our per capita income to US$1,600 in the next five years.

When Oli Ba was our Prime Monster the first time around, he promised us that we would all have cooking gas lines installed at our homes and we could forget about gas cylinders. Oli Ba this time has promised us rails and ships from China and India and we should be making money when the rails connect Kerung to Kolkata. Let us do the math. If Melamchi has taken us more than twenty years and it is still not ready then expect the railways and ships to arrive in our land next century.

How on Earth are we going to achieve 10% economic growth when our own netas and civil servants are hell bent on extorting from both domestic and foreign investors? We are not China or India. These two chimekis invite foreigners to invest in their land by offering them tax breaks and incentives. What do we offer? Nothing but lot of red tape and our civil servants create obstacles if the investors fail to give chiya kharcha to our chor hakim sahebs. 

And when our hakim sahebs do not get the chiya kharcha then they are not able to give the cut to our netas and when that happens, one does not get lucrative postings or get promoted. Here in this land of ours, those who break the law seem to be rewarded with top government positions. Everything is for sale and if you have the dough to buy our civil servants and netas then you will get anything you want. 

We hear about our business houses and lots of foreigners are only interested to open cement factories in this country. In a decade, don’t be surprised if we have a cement factory in every neighborhood and if you think air quality in our land is bad now then just be ready to buy a durable gas mask and an oxygen tank on the side when you go out to buy vegetables then.

Oli Ba tells us that we should be proud of his government because it wants to make Nepal peaceful and prosperous by restricting freedom of speech, peaceful assembly and other fundamental rights enshrined in the constitution. 

I think our comrades have either lost their minds or they have become too big for their boots because they have the majority in the parliament and they can get away with almost everything till the next federal elections. And our Madame President is only interested to cut ribbons and make foreign trips instead of telling our old crazy men to get their act right.

Oli Ba tells us that in the next five years, his government will be omitting ‘L’ from the LDC status of this country. Yes, from the “least developing country”, we will probably be an okay country by 2024. Whom are we kidding?  This is the land where most of us barely make a thousand dollars a year while our netas and civil servants spend that amount in bideshi whiskey in less than a month. 

Our thulo mancheys love to ride around in gas-guzzling SUVs while our transport wallahs pack us like sardines in local buses and charge us whatever they like. 

Look at our taxi wallahs. If you get a person to go on an official meter then he or she should receive a medal from the President. It’s hard to find an honest byapari these days. Well, it’s very hard to find an honest civil servant, cop or even a clown these days. Our government is run by clowns who think this country is a big circus and we will pay anything and clap at every nataks put on by our freeloaders.

We live in a land where we pay tens of billions of dollars to our chimekis to buy their stuff while we don’t even make a tenth of that in return. It’s time to save some money for the country and for all of us. I think our government should scrap the Visit Nepal 2020 project and instead come up with a ‘Save Nepal 2020’ campaign where we stop buying anything foreign for at least a year and save billions of dollars this coming year. 

Yes, let us not buy expensive vehicles for a year. Let us not buy smartphones for a year. Let us not buy branded clothes for a year. Let us do some carpooling for a year. Make it mandatory for a person with a car to drive at least one other person to work or to another destination. The same should go for the bikewallah as well. 

Ban all loans for private vehicles for a year and give loans to small businesses instead.  Support local farmers and products for a year and see if you like it or not. We are spending billions of dollars on apples and bananas, buffaloes and goats and many more. And ban all foreign travel for everyone from our netas to common folks. Instead of spending thousands of dollars on vacation to Thailand and Singapore, let us spend a fraction of that on domestic tourist spots instead. 

If our Finance Minister is really eager to help this country be self-reliant then he should first ban all bideshi whiskey so that even our contractors and fake VAT bill byaparis can save some money so that they don’t have to buy a truck load of Blue Label to gift it to our netas. Yes, our civil servants and netas should send their kids to community schools and not to the UK like our comrade Biplab does. Our netas should drink local chyaang instead of the local raksi from Scotland.

And the first person who will probably be suffering from withdrawal symptoms and go crazy when the ‘Blue Label’ ban goes into effect will be our Emperor, who once was considered our savior to get rid of all the ‘old’ Nepal stuff but who has himself turned into a Shree Aath Maharaja once he tasted the power of Baluwatar. 

Our Emperor will be in Baluwatar again if Oli does keep his promises of playing musical chair. Let’s see how he does this time around. Till then, let us enjoy Oli Ba who has now even made Comical Ali from Baghdad look like a second-rate comedian.

Guffadi is a grumpy old man who blogs at guffadi.blogspot.com. You may contact him at maguffadi@gmail.com