Uncertainty about presenting the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Compact in the House has grown despite the government already urging Speaker Agni Sapkota to table it.
The House meeting is scheduled for Wednesday but whether Speaker Sapkota will table the MCC Compact is yet to be known. "Speaker has said he will call business advisory committee meeting before the House meeting," Secretary at the House of Representatives Gopal Nath Yogi told Setopati. "Discussion may also be held whether to table the MCC in the meeting or not when it formally arrives there."
Law Minister Dilendra Badu has already met Speaker Sapkota in person and urged him to table the MCC Compact but the latter is not positive about it and has not provided any solid response to Minister Badu. "Speaker's opinion is that there is no environment to discuss the MCC in the meeting amidst obstruction and sloganeering in the House," a member of Sapkota's secretariat told Setopati. "It's not that the business brought by the government isn't moved forward."
A source close to Sapkota claimed that he is preparing to first hold discussion about the MCC in the business advisory committee for a few days if the government urges for tabling the MCC during the business advisory committee meeting. "It is Speaker's position that the MCC should not be passed amidst slogans in the House."
The business advisory committee is the committee that advises Speaker for operation of the House and includes whips of the major parties and representatives chosen by them. House meetings are generall conducted in accordance to the agendas set by the committee.
Speaker Sapkota can point at the longest House obstruction in Nepali parliamentary history by CPN-UML if the government brings the topic of MCC in the business advisory committee.
The main opposition party has been demanding expulsion of the then lawmakers of the Khanal-Nepal faction punished by UML or resignation of Speaker Sapkota for not expelling those lawmakers who are now in CPN (Unified Socialist).
