CHAIRMAN REGMI, FOUR PARTY MEET Kathmandu, 5 April: Chairman of the Interim Election Council Khil Raj Regmi and and representatives of a four-party body meet Friday to discuss three amendments suggested by the election commission to conduct the second constituent assembly elections at an unspecified date. Maoists oppose a one percent threshold of total vote cast in elections for proportional representation in the asembly’ parliament supported by NC and UML. Maoists oppose the threshold to get support of small parties that oppose the threshold—a new proposal proposed by the election commission to limit the size of parties. Parties also differ on declaration of personal assets to be eligible as candidate besides giving tickets to persons charged for criminal offences. Nnnn FOUR KILLED IN RUKUM TRACTOR ACCIDENT Kathmandu, 5 April Four persons were killed Thursday in a tractor accident at a village in Rukum. Three others were injured. nnnn MEDIA GOOGLE “There were foreign hands in all the political changes that took place in Nepal. The formation of Regmi-led government is a perfect example of this. "Now the country's politics is revolving around the interests of UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Prachanda and Baburam Bhattarai and they are acting under India's direction while Nepali Congress and CPN-UML ha ve been dancing to their rhythm.” 9cpb Maoist Vice-chairman CP Gajurel, The Kathmandu Post, 5 April) Nnnn 33 PARTIES STILL OPPOSE ELECTIONS Kathmandu, 5 April: With a view to seeking common ground on two contentious provisions in electoral ordinances, Chairman of the Interim Election Government Khil Raj Regmi on Thursday met representatives of 33 political parties, BHadra Sharma writes in The Kathmandu Post... Parties that have agreed to hold fresh CA election s in June, are sharply divided on whether to allow those convicted of criminal charges to contest the election s and endorse the provision of minimum one percent threshold under the proportional representation system.“The government will promulgate the electoral ordinances by incorporating the suggestions of the political parties,” Chairman Regmi said after the meeting. A draft amendment of the Constituent Assembly Act allows a former convict to contest the election s six years after s/he has completed his/her jail term. The draft also has a provision that requires candidates to secure at least one percent of the total votes to be eligible for seats under the proportional representation system. Following objections from the smaller parties, the threshold was brought down to one percent from the earlier 1.5 percent of the total votes. The Act defines murder, theft, robbery, misappropriation of foreign currency, kidnapping, rape, human trafficking, money laundering, bank irregularities, passport misuse, drug smuggling and jail break, among others, or any other moral turpitude as criminal offences. The political polarisation over the provisions in the electoral acts comes with only 78 days remaining for the June 21 deadline proposed for the fresh election s. In Thursday’s meeting, the UCPN (Maoist) and smaller parties, including the Tarai Madhes Loktantrik Party (TMLP), stood firm against the provision to allow former convicts to contest the election s. “The Act now has a new provision of punishing those convicted of criminal offences. We fear that false cases could be framed against us through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” Maoist leader Krishna Bahadur Mahara said. “Such provisions can be had in parliamentary polls, not for now,” said TMLP Vice-chairman Hridyesh Tripathi. The Nepali Congress and the CPN-UML, however, supported the provisions. Leaders of the two parties said the provisions in the draft were meant to ensure free, fair and credible election s.“The recent ordinances which have a one percent threshold, a provision of disclosing property details and setting time limits for those convicted in criminal offences for contesting the election s are welcome,” NC leader Minendra Rijal said. Both the parties said the one percent threshold for the proportional representation system was a ‘universally acknowledged practice.’ The provisions in question, according to EC officials, were proposed with a view to reducing the number of ‘unwanted’ parties in the polls. “The government is looking into their (33 parties) suggestions and will hold consultations with the Election Commission before forwarding the ordinances to the President,” government spokesperson Madhav Poudel told the Post. Nnnn BANK STAFF TO BE TREATED AT PAR WITH GOVT. STAFF FOR SALARY Kathmandu, 5 April:: Staffers of banks and financial institutions will not take home salaries less than that of government employees in the same position, if the Nepal Rastra Bank’s ( NRB ) new guideline is put in place, Prithvi Man Shrestha writes in The Kathmandu Post .. Once the salary guideline comes into effect, the lowest-ranked BFI staffer will get a monthly remuneration of at least Rs 10,320 — an amount equivalent to what the lowest-ranked civil service employee gets as per the government-set salary scale for civil servants last year. The central bank is coming up with the new guideline amid complaints about a huge gap between the salaries of the top-level executive (CEO) and junior staff. Particularly, there are complaints that the junior staff are not being paid “justifiably”. The guideline also seeks to maintain the gap between the salaries of top- and junior-level staff at a “justified level”, according to NRB sources. “The main objective of this plan is to reduce the gap between the salaries of the chief executive officer and other employees,” said a senior NRB official. “The plan is likely to come next week.” The central bank had planned to introduce the BFI staff salary guideline when it introduced another guideline on BFI CEOs’ remunerations three years ago. But the plan was aborted due to divergent views within the central bank. “It has been a long since we started working on the guideline, and now we have reached the final stage,” said another NRB official. The Insurance Board’s (IB) recent move to set the criteria on the difference between the salaries of the CEO and junior staff at insurance companies also encouraged the central bank to act fast on the matter. “The IB’s guideline, of course, pressed us to introduce this plan soon,” said the NRB official. Introducing a directive on good governance, the IB has provisioned that the salary of the chief executive should not be more than 15 times the salary of the junior-most staff. The central bank plans to implement the guideline in commercial banks, development banks and finance companies, while leaving micro-finance institutions. “Being small entities with limited transactions, implementing the plan in micro-finance institutions may not be practical,” said the second NRB official. Amid global concerns about high executive compensation after the 2008-09 financial crisis, the NRB had fixed the salary scale for BFI CEOs in 2010. As per the remuneration guidelines, a commercial bank CEO’s annual compensation should be 5 percent of the total average expenses for all employees in the last three years or 0.025 percent of total assets of the bank maintained in the previous year, whichever is lower. As for the remuneration of CEOs of B, C and D class financial institutions, the central bank has been flexible. The salaries of B, C and D class FIs’ CEOs should be fixed based on the financial status of FIs in the last three years, also taking into consideration components such as return on equity, size of business, operating profit, future outlook, existing risks in FIs and academic qualification, experiences and leadership quality. nnnn