DHI and MPs

Wai! Our custodian of the national wealth is back in the limelight. In the last session of parliament, they forced their way into the hall of the limelight. This time, they are drawn into it.

You remember? In the last session of parliament, DHI made an offer of bags to the National Assembly members as a special year memento. However, the MPs found the acceptance of the gift ‘inappropriate’ and politely rejected it. Immediately, DHI lured the other house, National Council, with the bags, and the council members succumbed to the lure without any qualm. Thus, ACC’s Gifts Rules was rendered toothless.

The gift was rejected, but DHI was certainly not forgotten. The National Assembly members say, in unison, that DHI is paying its board members an ‘exorbitantly’ high sitting fee of Nu 15,000 a sitting. That’s too high in a poor country, an MP cries. Indeed, exorbitantly high, another echoes.

But DHI stands its ground. We are autonomous, and a letter from the previous Prime Minister makes our stand clear, it retorts. Finance Minister’s directives ‘do not’ apply to us, it concludes. And the curtain falls on the first scene.

But the drama continues behind the scene. Four meetings in a month, and the sitting fee for a board member is Nu 60,000, which is bordering on a minister’s salary, an observer remarks. The fee for a single sitting is more than my monthly salary, a mid-level civil servant wonders aloud. That’s how they put the national wealth to judicious use, another civil servant quips.

Meanwhile, a showdown seems remote, at least an easy and amicable one.

One Response to “DHI and MPs”

1. DHI for us - Tshering Tobgay’s Blog says:

   November 8, 2011 at 12:14 am

   [...] about DHI. On several occasions already, MPs from the ruling party have expressed concern and objected to how DHI is run and how their employees are paid. The government complained about and succeeded in [...]

   Reply