Education Minister Ram Chandra Kuswaha has been sacked and replaced by Sarbendra Nath Shukla after the former was accused of involvement in a corruption scandal. The new minister has vowed to fight corruption, reports Nepalnews:

After taking oath, Shukla told reporters that his first priority will be to make education ministry free of corruption and assure the donors that their money will not be misused.

It is unclear what kind of action will be take against the former minister accused of selling relief teachers’ vacancies. What is known is that Nepal’s “anti-corruption agencies lack clear jurisdiction”, according to a report by Global Integrity, an international corruption tracking organisation. The report says:

"By and large, the anti-graft body is protected from political interference in the current political and legal context. Traditionally, there was no system of hearing and confirmation process for this office. Under these circumstances, political influence over the appointment was bound to exist.

"There are so many instances that even the constitutional anti-graft body like CIAA and even the court decisions are influenced by powerful politicians in Nepal. The CIAA decisions have been declared invalid by the court so the CIAA has been losing case battles."

In the meantime, the government has annulled nearly 12000 relief teacher appointments made by direct orders from the Education Ministry. It has also appointed a three-member team to investigate irregularities in the Ministry over teachers’ quotas.

While we are on the abuse of power, Nepal Electricity Authority has said VIPs, including former prime ministers Krishna Prasad Bhattarai and Sher Bahadur Deuba and former home minister KP Sharma Oli, have been using its vehicles without a formal approval from the NEA board. Republica writes:

Speaking at a press meet organized at the NEA Tuesday, NEA Managing Director Dr Jivendra Jha said, “We find that the three vehicles have been provided to the VIPs on the basis of verbal orders from the government. There is no record of the NEA board taking any decision over this.”

Moreover, NEA is also meeting fuel costs of up to 240 liters per month for ex-PM Deuba. As per NEA rules, only the energy minister is entitled to such a facility. All the other NEA officials enjoy the privilege of up to 120 liters of fuel a month. Bhattarai and Oli, however, do not get any fuel from NEA.