Nepal, Feb. 2 -- On January 10, while responding to the State Affairs and Good Governance Parliamentary Committee, Chairperson Madhav Prasad Ghimire of the Federal Public Service Commission stated the indefensible. His suggestion that "provincial secretaries and chief administrative officers (CAOs) for local governments should be federal government employees", is not only unwarranted but also contradicts the federal constitution of 2015.

Unfortunately, despite the severity of the issue, no serious discussion has been reported in the media. The debated Federal Civil Service (FCS) Act is instrumental for 760 sub-national administrations suffering from the chronic shortage of civil personnel. Registered in 2017, the bill faced various amend...