The government has finally amended the Civil Service Act to bring the new law which has provision to expel from service the government employees who have obtained or are in the process of obtaining citizenship or Permanent Residence (PR) status of a foreign country. After over a year-long disputes and constraints, the meeting of the legislature-parliament on Friday finally passed the Bill to make the amendment.
President Dr Ram Baran Yadav will sign the Bill into law.
Talking to Setopati, Minister for General Administration Lalbabu Pandit, who devoted much of his time as the Minister to introduce the amendment, said the government is preparing to bring the law into operation as soon as it is put into place.
According to the new provision, civil servants who have already acquired citizenship or PR of a foreign country or are in the process of acquiring them are mandated to formally inform the government about it within 30 days. They will then get 30 days to cancel their PR or citizenship or procedures they have entered to acquire them.
If they fail to abide by this rule, the employees are liable to expulsion from their position within 30 days as per the provision of the new law.
Pandit said the government will prepare regulation to implement the new law. "However, the countdown will begin for the employees as soon as the President signs on the document," he said.
Pandit says some 1200 civil servants could be affected by the new law. He said intesive investigation will be conducted to identify them.
For now, the law will only apply for civil servants and not all government employees.
The amended Act also puts restrictions on the government employees to work as consultants for NGOs/INGOs. Pandit said this was essential to put an end to the increasing tendency among government employees to work as consultants even during the office hours.
According to Pandit, there was much lobbying and even some section of the government strongly attempted to foil the amendment from coming into effect.
Attempts were made to bring similar law during the direct rule by then King Gyanendra Shah in 2004/05. However, it was categorized in the list of the 'regressive' acts of the King's government after the success of People's Movement II in 2005/06.
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