It seems that our political parties can take ‘black’ money from our fake VAT-bill byaparies, slimy contractors, manpower companies and mafias from every other sector but when it comes to taking money from bideshis, they either seem to choose one of our chimekis. Our Emperor has good connections with the Chinese byaparis while our Congressi wallahs have the same with the Desi byaparis. We, the people have no connection, therefore we go to foreign lands to work for their byaparis there.
Our government also takes foreign money in name of foreign aid, loans, grants and what not. But it seems that taking the ‘Amriki’ money today will make us look bad on our chimekis. Our netas from the ruling party tell us that taking Amriki money would make us a part of the Amrikis’ strategy to counter China.
Who cares? It seems that only our politicians worry about making our chimekis happy. We, the people send our kids to universities in India and China with our hard-earned money unlike our politicians, civil servants and byaparis who send their kids on scholarships provided by the Chinese and the Indian government.
Our politicians want the United States to clarify whether US$500 million MCC grant is part of their Indo-Pacific Strategy. The United States is not asking Nepal permission to build an air base or station thousands of their security personnel. If that was to happen then both our chimekis would probably shut down their borders and give us a hard time but we will always have Uncle Sam as our backup. Yes, if the Amrikans think we are helping them with their foreign policy nataks then don’t be surprised if we get food and fuel transported every hour with their military aircrafts.
And our netas can get free Cadillacs and even better bullet proof vehicles like the ones President Trump rides around in. And we cans also have our own Nepali ‘Secret Service’ so that those providing security for our so-called pick pocket VVIPs would no longer show their guns and have sirens blazing when our clowns ride around town.
The ‘Yeti’ kanda is getting lots of coverage in the media. It’s not only the ‘Yeti’ folks who are minting tons of money from government contracts and what not. It’s thousands of byaparis who are near and dear ones of our netas who have made billions of Rupees by paying less rent or evading taxes everywhere.
Let us not blame the byaparis alone. If you are a business person then the first thing you want from your business is to make a profit in a legal manner. If we had an effective tax system then all of our byaparis would pay ‘real’ taxes and even get some tax reliefs for hiring thousands of people and even government loans for providing much needed tax revenue to the State.
But in this land of ours, it’s the other way around. Our tax department wallahs themselves tell our byaparis how much taxes are to be paid to the State which is peanuts and how much to them and how much to leave aside for our netas. Even a monkey in Pashupatinath can do the math. The country gets not even 10% while the rest goes to the chors running the country. No wonder the nation is broke while our thulo manches drive around vehicles worth Karods.
We have corrupt politicians who want to make money by any means possible and we have corrupt civil servants who help them to engage in such acts. We must be stupid like our netas to think that the billions of Rupees India and China provides Nepal every year in loans, grants and other nataks is because they want to help us as chimekis.
Both of them want to fulfill their self-interest and our politicians and civil servants play along just because they want to make an extra billion Rupees and get freebies for them and their kids. These cheap beggars should know better. If you really want to go on a begging spree then at least beg for something bigger, better and something that will be useful for the country.
Don’t go on begging for cycles and ambulances from India. We can afford that. If the government doesn’t have any funds for such stuff then ask the people and we will gladly donate a few Rupees and millions of us can give our poor government something to buy such stuff.
Why is our government making us look bad by asking the Chinese to rebuild the Durbar High School or the Indians to build some other schools around the country? We would have been proud to donate and build our own government schools and have our grandparents name on the donation list then see some other countries ‘on your face’ promotion of their so-called aid.
We can even help to rebuild Singha Durbar itself if the government ask us from donations. Why has our own government forgotten its people? All of us pay taxes except our politicians and political parties. We, the people can forego one plate of momo every day and fund some of our programs as well. The government is poor because it is not strong enough to collect the ‘right’ taxes from our byaparis and landlords.
Whoever is paying taxes on the actual rent received from his or her premises in Durbarmarg should be made the next Finance Minister. At least he or she will be honest and smart enough to figure out that the way to cut trade deficit and even save some money in our foreign reserves is not by reducing the amount we can spend when we go on vacations or for study purposes overseas but by investing in agriculture, hydropower and tourism for starts so that we can buy our own cheap onions, we can sell our electricity to our chimeks and we can get tens of millions of tourists and make a whole tons of money from the bideshis.
Well, let’s get back to the MCC story. We became eligible for the grant back in 2002 when Georgie Dubya was living in the White House and it took us another 15 years to sign the agreement and it can only be implemented if our good for nothing parliament ratifies it. Our netas think that if we take the money then we become a part of Amrika and will have to go to war with China. Well, that’s not the real reason. The truth is our netas shit their pants whenever they get a call from the Chinese or the Indian Embassy.
The Amriki Ambassador Randy Berry (he should change his first name to Rabi or Ram or just plain old Ronny while serving in Nepal) tells our netas that MCC is part of the Amriki policy but it doesn’t require membership or some other natak. Our netas think we are better off if we take billions of dollars in loans under China’s Belt and Road Initiative but we will sell ourselves to the devil if we take half a billion dollar grant from Berry’s homeland. Maybe, our netas should clarify to us why they are not that interested to ratify the MCC thing instead. Have they taken any dough from the Chinese or the Indians or every other bideshi except the Amrikis?
The grant could be useful for our hydropower, infrastructure and other development works. And if the Amrikis are giving us half a billion dollars then they should be allowed to audit the expenses and terminate the agreement if they see nautanki nataks well. If you are giving me a thousand Rupees to buy cakes and ask for a receipt then what’s the problem? Well, the problem is with our netas and civil servants. These buffoons are used to buying Rs 8,000 pen drives that sells for meager Rs 400 in the market.
If our netas and the civil servants had any knowledge of foreign diplomacy then it’s the right time to rename the UN park to ‘President Trump Park’ and even ask the Amrikis to fund it and give us a dozen fighter planes and a couple of nukes as well. Maybe, that would make our chimekis love us more and also get us Microsoft, Google and other tech companies to come to Nepal and provide jobs to thousands of our young folks. But our politicians are nincompoops. God bless us all.
Guffadi is a grumpy old man who blogs at guffadi.blogspot.com. You may contact him at maguffadi@gmail.com
