October 19:  Over two dozen bills related to investment and development have been stuck in the parliament due to the obstruction caused by the main opposition party CPN-UML. The law-making process, which was affected by the dissolution of the House of Representatives by the previous government twice, has not been able to move forward even months after it was reinstated by the Supreme Court. 

After the parliament proceedings resumed, the Railway Bill was withdrawn by the government and the replacement budget was introduced. Other than this, the house proceedings have remained obstructed. 

According to the Parliament Secretariat, fifty bills related to economic and social issues are currently under consideration in both the houses of parliament. Among them, more than three dozen of the bills are in the House of Representatives, which has been stranded  due to the obstruction by the opposition party.

Bills related to construction and development of national priority projects, export-import regulation, public procurement, competition, promotion and market protection bill, drinking water and sanitation, customs bill, credit protection and other bills have been registered in the House of Representatives and the process of endorsing them has not gathered any momentum.

The Insurance Bill, Information Technology Bill, Public Debt Management Bill were under discussion in various committees of the parliament.  After the restoration of the parliament, the insurance bill was discussed in the Finance Committee only once, but it has not been finalized yet.

Krishna Prasad Dahal, President of the Finance Committee said that clause-wise discussions on the bills could not be held due to the dissolution of parliament, Covid-19, and festivals.

Rojnath Pandey, Spokesperson of the Parliament Secretariat, said there is no alternative to start house proceedings after reaching consensus among all parties. He informed that the parliamentary panels are prepared to speed up the lawmaking process. 

At present, the Immigration Bill, two bills related to the Civil Aviation Authority, Statistics Bill, Prevention of Corruption Bill, Investigation of Abuse of Authority (Third Amendment) Bill, Social Security (First Amendment) Bill are gathering dust in the National Assembly.

Former Finance Secretary Shantaraj Subedi argues that when the lawmaking process is affected,  it will also affect the overall investment environment. If laws are not formed in time, the national goals put forward by the government will be affected and even private and foreign investors will be reluctant to invest due to lack of investment-friendly laws.

Economist Keshav Acharya says it is unfortunate that the lawmaking process is affected despite having the parliament. He believes that the former prime minister influenced the lawmaking process by dissolving parliament on grounds of inter-party conflicts while the current PM has failed to reach consensus among political parties to move ahead with the lawmaking process. 

Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and Speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota had tried to end the stalemate in the parliament by calling all-party meetings separately before Dashain but the CPN UML boycotted the meetings.  CPN-UML has been insisting that one-on-one talks should be held between UML Chairman KP Oli, the government and the Speaker of the parliament.