IMAGE: REUTERS
WHEN BALENDRA SHAH called senior civil servants to Singha Durbar in late March, the new prime minister told them to stop using laws and paperwork to avoid work. The 35-year-old had won a big majority earlier that month. He used his first meeting with government secretaries to say one thing plainly. “Until now, you have worked in the interest of the people’s representatives, not the people,” he said, according to a secretary who attended. “Let that not happen anymore.” He told officials who could not keep pace to step aside. Within days the same old fight between elected leaders and the officials who stayed had started again.
Nepal has swapped governments many times since multiparty democracy came back in 1990. It dropped its monarchy in 2008. It passed a new constitution in 2015. Old parties lost much of their grip in the upheaval before this year’s election. But the civil service—the permanent officials who run government offices—still works under the Civil Service Act of 1993. Ten years after the constitution split power between the central government, seven provinces and 753 local governments, the country still has no full law for a civil service across all three levels. The politicians changed faster than the office system they inherited.
The results show in where officials sit. Nearly 32,000 civil-service jobs were empty earlier this year. More than 50,000 posts sat in the capital, according to a March report in the Kathmandu Post. Local governments, where people go for services and projects, had trouble hiring. Many officials did not want to move to provincial or municipal offices. The 2015 split created new levels of government but did not settle who would staff them, who would boss them, or which level would control their careers.
For a politician, moving an official can look like the fastest way to make the office obey. Nepal’s governments have long used transfers and appointments to reward friends, hold sway over ministries and put trusted officials in sensitive jobs. Officials then have reasons to build political contacts. Contacts can help them get promoted or get a good posting. A job in Kathmandu gives more access to senior officials and political leaders than a job in a far-off municipality. Merit and experience compete with knowing the right people.
That deal hurts both sides. Ministers spend time swapping officials instead of carrying out policy. Officials learn that loyalty to the person who appointed them may count more than steady work. An official who expects to be moved after a minister changes has little reason to care about a project that will pay off after he leaves. Politicians blame bureaucrats for delays. Officials point to shifting orders, political meddling and unclear rules. Both sides have complaints. Neither gives up its advantage.
The problem is not just that officials resist politicians. A civil service needs rules that shield professional judgement from arbitrary orders, especially when public money, contracts or legal rights are at stake. If a minister can fire an inconvenient official or skip normal procedures at will, he may get faster obedience now and weaker government later. Nepal must tell the difference between proper caution and deliberate blocking, and between professional independence and private gain.
Shah’s government tried to force the issue. In March it sent 63 undersecretaries, or officials of the same rank, to local units with no chief administrative officer. That fixed a staffing hole for the moment. It did not answer why officials did not want to serve outside the capital. Nor could one order set up a lasting system for hiring, moving, promoting and punishing civil servants across three levels of government.
The government’s Federal Civil Service Bill is meant to do that. It reached Parliament on October 1st, after years of delay and failed tries to replace the 1993 law. The bill would set rules for the central civil service and its links to provincial and local administrations. It proposes job reviews tied to results and changes to retirement and hiring. Some of these changes worry public-administration experts. Reaching Parliament is a step. The bill is not law. The budget session ended the next day. The winter session will take it up.
The bill’s path shows why reform is tough. The government made the bill a priority for its first 100 days. The draft still went through ministries for legal review and money approval. It went to the Public Service Commission for advice in September. It went back to the Cabinet before registration. Each step had a purpose. Together they ate months before lawmakers could start.
The delay hurts the economy. In its October 2026 Nepal Development Update, the World Bank said spending on big public projects fell to 46.8% in the fiscal year ending in mid-July. That was a record low. The bank blamed implementation problems, including disruption after the September 2025 unrest. Weak administration is not the only reason for underspending. The figure is not all down to civil servants. But public investment needs officials who can prepare projects, get approvals, buy supplies and watch construction. If duties are unclear or jobs sit empty, budget money does not turn itself into a road, a school or a working public service.
The government has a choice. One way is to replace senior officials, speed up transfers and set targets from the top. It can show movement and give ministers more control. It can also shake the administration before a new system is in place. In July, the Post reported rising worry among civil servants about political interference and planned changes to retirement rules. A plan that could push thousands of officials out early raised questions about lost experience and a younger administration.
The other way is slower and less showy: set clear rules for promotion, make transfers harder to use as political rewards, fill empty jobs where services are needed most, and give provincial and local governments a steady supply of staff. Targets tied to results can help if officials have money and power to meet them, and if bad results bring consequences no matter who they know. A new law can set duties. It cannot by itself change the reasons postings and promotions are used in political deals.
There is a risk that the push to keep politics out of the civil service becomes another way to put politics in. The bill has drawn criticism over outside appointments to senior posts and changes to normal career paths. Such steps may bring new skills. They can also weaken hiring and promotion by ability if ministers get wide room to pick senior officials. The test is whether the rules tie the hands of the government of the day, including the one that writes them.
Nepal’s new leaders have a stronger election win than many before them. They will face the same temptation: treat the civil service as a wall to knock down, not a set of offices whose reasons must change. The bureaucracy has outlasted kings, party coalitions and constitutional upheaval partly because every government needs what it does. It also lasts because political leaders keep finding it useful to control appointments and transfers without fixing the system that governs them. ■
