Himal Press 
POKHARA: CPN-UML has opposed the decision taken by the 37th Municipal Executive Committee of the Pokhara Metropolitan City to remove 28 employees.
CPN-UML representatives in the executive committee have expressed serious concern over the decisions made at the meeting, which they boycotted due to disagreement with the agenda and proposed topics.
Contrary to the decisions of the 36th meeting, the 37th meeting decided to remove 28 employees – 10 engineers and 18 sub-engineers – effective from Kartik (mid-November) providing them salary and festival allowances until then. For seven other employees (five teachers and two social mobilizers), the decision was made to reassign them as office assistants until Poush (mid-January), with termination by the end of Kartik if they refuse the new position.
UML has 18 members in the 43-member Executive Council – Deputy Mayor, eight ward chairpersons and other war representatives.
Dhanraj Acharya from the CPN (Unified Socialist) is the Mayor, while UML’s Manjudevi Gurung is the Deputy Mayor.
The metropolis has a federal quota of 361 positions. It, however, employs 747 staff excluding those in the health division. Likewise, 201 have been employed on a contract basis. Mayor Aacharya has recruited 35 staff on a contract basis since his election to the position in 2022.
The 25th executive committee meeting had previously made three decisions regarding staff management: Return staff deputized from other municipal bodies to their original posts, decline transfer requests from other municipalities, and gradually phase out contract employees after filling permanent positions.
The UML has alleged that the mayor is trying to create conflict between two major political parties to cover up his weaknesses, acting on behalf of certain interest groups and ignoring major political parties. The party has demanded immediate cancellation of the decisions.
The party has termed these decisions as non-transparent, stating that they were made while the Deputy Mayor was on leave during the Tihar public holiday without any discussion about the meeting agenda. UML has also questioned why no action was taken on more than 35 employees recruited by Mayor Acharya.
