Prime Minister (PM) KP Sharma Oli has called the task force formed by ruling CPN to study about the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) useless and unnecessary.
Speaking with the nine-party delegation including CPN-ML and CPN (Revolutionary Maoist) that met him to urge him to not pass the MCC Compact, he said the CPN task force is irrelevant.
"We found the PM 110 percent committed toward the MCC," CPN-ML General Secretary CP Mainali said. "He mocked the task force formed by his own party and called it ueless. We feel he gives more importance to money than the American strategy and politics."
Revolutionary Maoists leader CP Gajurel said PM Oli during a recent meeting at Baluwatar stated that the task force was formed only to make things clear. He quoted the PM as arguing that there is no point of forming the task force in 2020 two and a half years after signing the MCC Compact in 2017.
Ruling CPN had hotly debated MCC during the recent standing committee meeting with the erstwhile Maoists and those from Madhav Kumar Nepal faction opposing it saying it should only be passed if it becomes clear that it is not part of the Indo-Pacific Strategy floated by America.
The US embassy in Kathmandu later issued a 10-point statement clarifying that the MCC is not part of military affairs.
The press statement, which it said was in response to a large number of queries from Nepali citizens, politicians, and members of the media about the MCC, claimed that every Nepali government since 2012 has been in favor of the MCC and that there is no military component to the compact.
The issue was raised even during the central committee meeting that concluded on February 2 and the party formed a task force to address the issue. The party formed the task force led by senior leader Jhala Nath Khanal and including Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali and standing committee member Bhim Rawal as members on February 2 to study MCC to find out whether it is part of the American military strategy or not.
