NEPAL
The Nepalese Government has backed away from moves to increase the retirement age for its Public Servants after the Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration stated that it would remain at 58 years.
This is contrary to an earlier statement by the Ministry of Finance that said the age should be raised to 60 in response to the rising pension burden on the country due to increased life expectancy.
Meanwhile a draft Bill on Public Service reform has proposed cutting out three Ministries and barring inter-Ministry transfers.
The Bill removes the Economic Planning and Statistics, Education, and Miscellaneous Ministries, recommending they be absorbed into the Administrative Ministry while introducing two new ones, Health and Parliament.
Under the new arrangement, there would be nine Ministries — Engineering, Judicial, Foreign, Forestry, Agriculture, Administrative, Auditing, Parliament and Health.
Public Servants have been critical of the merger of the three Ministries into an Administrative super-Ministry, saying it will have negative effects on their careers.
Currently, there are 22,000 Public Servants in the Administrative Ministry with around 5,200 in the Ministries to be merged.
They claimed the Administrative Ministry was empire building having already absorbed the Royal Palace Service, the Postal Service and computer operators who had previously been in the Miscellaneous Ministry.
Former Chief Secretary, Bimal Koirala said the new provisions could demoralise new entrants into the Public Service.
Earlier dozens of Government workers protested over the new provisions outside the office of Minister for Federal Affairs and General Administration, Lalbabu Pandit.
Kathmandu, 4 September, 2018
