Parliament committee decides to move ahead hearing process of proposed ambassadors

The Federal Parliament, Parliamentary Hearing Committee has decided to proceed ahead the parliamentary hearing of the six proposed ambassadors from the Foreign Service.

The government on July 11 had recommended Lok Bahadur Thapa as the Ambassador to the New York-based Permanent Mission of Nepal to the United Nations, Ram Prasad Subedi as the Ambassador to Switzerland, Sudheer Bhattarai as the Ambassador to France, Ghanshyam Lamsal as the Ambassador to Kuwait, Tej Bahadur Chhetri as the Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and Dhan Bahadur Oli as the Ambassador to Thailand. It had sent their names to the Committee for parliamentary hearing.

A meeting of the Committee today decided to inform the general public about the parliamentary hearing of the individuals proposed as ambassador and to publish a public notice asking for any complaints against them within 10 days, said former minister Gyanendra Bahadur Karki who is a member of the Committee.

Presiding over the meeting, Karki had presented a proposal in the meeting seeking its decision on the proposal. The meeting unanimously approved the proposal.

Speaking in the meeting, some members had inquired about the topic of adopting the inclusive principle in accordance with the spirit of the Constitution in the context of the recommendation of the proposed ambassadors.

They said the government and the political parties should take seriously while recommending the name of people other than from the foreign service for Ambassador the issues that came up during discussions in the meeting.

They informed the meeting about the complaint that while recommending the names for appointment as Ambassador, the Ministry repeated some people and recommended them to places of their choice while denying the opportunity to others.

The practice while recommending names for appointing as ambassador is that not less than 50 percent of the recommended names should be of employees of the rank of Gazetted First Class and Special Class in the foreign service and the rest of the people outside the foreign service who have made special contribution to the diplomatic sector or are experts on foreign relations and diplomacy.

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