Finally House of Representatives ratifies MCC

Kathmandu / Feb. 27: The House of Representatives of the Federal Parliament has, at last, ratified the Millennium Challenge Corporation Compact. With this development, the implementation of the Compact will now proceed.

The compact was endorsed by the ruling coalition parties amid obstructions by main opposition party, CPN-UML, in the lower House.

Finance Minister Janardan Sharma, on behalf of the government, had presented the proposal for endorsement. Speaker of the House, Agni Prasad Sapkota, after rounds of deliberation, had announced the ratification of the agreement.

Earlier today, leaders of government alliance had decided to endorse the US government grant in parliament, albeit after including ‘interpretive declaration’ to the proposal. The proposal was later passed by the Council of Ministers.

Govt-coalition decides to ratify MCC today itself, ‘interpretive points’ to be included While Nepali Congress was firm on its stance to ratify the agreement, its partners in government – CPN-Maoist Centre, CPN- Unified Socialist, Janata Samajwati Party and Rastriya Janamorcha Party – were opposed to the same.

However, after much political polarisation and consequent engagements later, ruling alliance parties finally reached a consensus to proceed with the deal, but with the inclusion of the interpretive points to the proposal. Parties in government other than the NC were suddenly threatened at the prospect of disintegration of the coalition owing to NC’s recent dialogues with main opposition party, which were deemed to be nearing a conclusive agreement.

The Millennium Challenge Corporation is a bilateral United States foreign aid agency established by the U.S. Congress in 2004. It is an independent agency separate from the State Department and USAID.

HoR Endorses Discussion Proposal On MCC

The proposal of normal discussion over the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) compact has been endorsed by the House of Representatives (HoR).

The normal proposal of discussion over the MCC was presented by Finance Minister Janardan Sharma at today’s parliament meeting.

Speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota had presented the proposal for decision in the parliament.