The main opposition CPN-UML has boycotted the meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the parliament Tuesday.
UML has been demanding that it should get to lead the committee in capacity of the main opposition party while ruling Nepali Congress (NC) is adamant that it will not give up the leadership of the committee pointing that it is the only House committee that the party is leading.
UML Chief Whip Bishal Bhattarai told Setopati that the party boycotted the meeting after presenting its position in the meeting.
"We have been saying for almost a year that leadership of the committee should be given to the main opposition party. We have said that the system where one who incurs public expenditure gets to surveil the expenses is not right," Bhattarai said. "UML has not remained leader of the committee even for a minute when we have led the government in the past. We have, therefore, said that the Public Accounts Committee should be handed over to the main opposition party. We have left today's meeting to provide an outlet."
Bhattarai, Shiva Maya Tumbahangphe, Surya Pathak, Raghubir Mahaseth, Maina Bhandari, Rajendra Gautam and Gokul Baskota—who represent UML in the PAC—all boycotted the meeting.
The PAC still has members picked at a time when UML and CPN (Maoist Center) were unified as CPN while UML has split further with the then Khanal-Nepal faction forming CPN (Unified Socialist).
The current House committee chairs were picked when CPN led the government with an almost two-thirds majority. NC's Bharat Shah was made chairman of the PAC while Laxman Lal Karna of Loktantrik Samajwadi Party (LSP) headed the Parliamentary Hearing Committee. CPN lawmakers led all of the remaining parliamentary committees.
NC has been saying it should be allowed to head other committees if UML wants to lead the PAC.
The main opposition party heads the PAC in parliamentary system and the committee has been headed by opposition parties most of the time even in Nepal.
PAC Chair Sah, however, has been arguing that neither the Constitution nor any law bars the ruling party from leading the PAC, and pointing that the second largest party NC has been leading only one committee with other parties heading the remaining 14 committees.
He has been citing examples of how Ram Krishna Yadav of NC and Janardan Sharma of Maoist Center have led the PAC even when their party was in the government and adding that the issue can be settled only through agreement among the parties.
