The Federal Parliament Secretariat’s attempt to amend laws in its favor by leveraging lawmakers has failed.
Lawmakers had proposed amendments to a law that would grant pensions to Parliament staff after just 15 years of service, despite the government not originally proposing such a provision. However, after the information became public, the lawmakers backed down.
The Law, Justice, and Human Rights Committee of the House of Representatives rejected the amendments that would have allowed early pensions for Parliament employees who had not completed their full service period.
Committee Chairperson Bimala Subedi presented the report rejecting the amendments registered on behalf of the Secretariat in the House of Representatives.
After the report is passed, it will be forwarded to the National Assembly. If passed there and authenticated by the president, it will become law.
General Secretary of Federal Parliament Roj Nath Pandey had argued in the House committee’s meeting that the Secretariat Act had not been amended for a long time and therefore provisions for providing pensions were necessary. However, CPN (Maoist Center) lawmaker Purna Bahadur Gharti opposed granting pensions to politically appointed officials such as general secretary of Parliament.
The government had registered the Bill to Amend Some Nepal Acts to amend 80 different laws. However, the Parliament Secretariat had separately registered amendments through lawmakers to the Act Related to the Remuneration, Terms of Service, and Facilities of the General Secretary of the Federal Parliament, Secretary of the House of Representatives, and Secretary of the National Assembly, and the Act Related to the Federal Parliament Secretariat.
Lawmakers Santosh Pariyar, Sumana Shrestha, Pradeep Yadav, Ranju Kumari Jha, Rajendra Kumar KC, Amaresh Kumar Singh, Rajendra Prasad Pandey, Gokul Baskota, Achyut Prasad Mainali, Thakur Prasad Gaire, Deepa Sharma, and Ishwari Gharti had registered the amendments, which were not related to the bill.
The amendments proposed by all lawmakers were identical. They stated that if the general secretary or secretaries of Parliament, after 15 years of service, were unable to receive a pension upon retirement, their service period could be extended by up to five years for pension purposes. In other words, the amendments aimed to ensure that the general secretary of the Federal Parliament, the secretary of the House of Representatives, and the secretary of the National Assembly would receive pension benefits even if they retired after 15 years.
Additionally, it has been proposed that the minimum age for becoming a secretary of the House of Representatives or the National Assembly be set at 45 years, compared to the current 35 years. Similarly, the report has proposed raising the retirement age for the general secretary and secretaries of Parliament to 60 years. The current retirement age for these officials is 58 years.
Santosh Pariyar, chief chip of the Rastriya Swatantra Party, told Setopati that the Parliament Secretariat had requested them to register the amendment proposals. He said that, given the goodwill with the Parliament Secretariat, they could not turn down the requests of people they knew.
