By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS
Kathmandu : Within hours of widely published media reports that the multi-party government of Nepal had abolished its beleaguered royal family’s ‘salary’ for the first time in almost two and a half centuries, the Nepalese finance minister said that King Gyanendra would still get a healthy NRS 125 million ($1.94 million).
However, instead of salary, the government is calling it “administrative expenses”.
On Thursday, Nepal’s Finance Minister Ram Sharan Mahat presented a NRS 169 billion ($2.62 billion) budget in the parliament that gave the impression there were no allocations for King Gyanendra and his family.
The minister’s budget speech had no reference to the palace. The public and media interpreted this as meaning that the eight-party government had decided to scrap royal allowances.
“Mahat pulls financial plug on monarchy”, the Kathmandu Post daily screamed Friday, setting the tone for other media.
The Times of London said the budget showed “an aggressive intent to marginalise the unpopular king” and axed the NRS 32.7 million ($506,980) “stipend” it had paid to the royal family last year.
However, in the press conference that followed the budget Friday, Mahat has now revealed that the palace will still get NRS 125 million.
The budget for 2007-8 gives NRS 80 million ($1.24 million) to the king to pay his staff, who run into several hundreds. An additional NRS 20 million ($310,080) has been allocated for maintaining the Narayanhity royal palace while the king gets NRS 25 million ($387,600).
Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world where the prime minister’s salary is about NRS 25,000 ($388).
Afraid of stiff opposition from the Maoists and public if palace allocations were continued openly, the finance minister has disguised the king’s allowances, diverting the funds through the prime minister’s office and ministry of general administration.
“I have not mentioned a royal allowance in the budget since monarchy has been suspended (by the new constitution promulgated in January),” Nepal’s state media Saturday reported Mahat as saying. “However, it does not mean that the palace can be totally deprived of allowances.
“Even a suspended employee gets his salary.”
Even last year, soon after the opposition parties came to power following a mass revolt against King Gyanendra’s 15-month direct governance, Mahat’s budget had said it had slashed the palace allowances by more than half.
However, that was not true as the government continued to divert funds to the palace in the name of “administrative expenses”.
Though there have been several calls to reduce the palace retinue that runs into almost 800 people, the government has been unable to do so.
Though Mahat hastened to add that the royals would have to pay nearly 26 percent tax on their allowances and income, it is doubtful if the decision would be implemented.
Since last year, the government has been repeatedly asking the royal family to furnish details about their income and assets to determine the income tax they would have to pay. However, all the requests have been ignored.
The government has also been repeatedly saying that the king would have to obey the law that puts a ceiling on the amount of land one can possess in Nepal and the property he inherited from his slain brother Birendra would be nationalised.But so far, no move has been made to implement the decision.
In the 15 months since he stepped down as the head of government, King Gyanendra has become a convenient whipping boy for the government to cover up its failures.
Though the ruling parties agreed that a final decision on monarchy would be taken only after the constituent assembly election, they have been taking arbitrary decisions about the palace without waiting for the election. But none of the decisions have been implemented.
Meanwhile, the security situation has been worsening daily and the government had to postpone the election from June to November.
Even now, there are doubts that the election would be held November 22. If there is a free and fair poll, there is a strong possibility of at least 30 percent voting to retain monarchy. In that case the government may have to undo all the anti-palace measures it has announced.