Parliament rectifies MCC compact

KATHMANDU, FEBRUARY 28 : A meeting of the House of Representatives (HoR) held on Sunday has ratified the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) compact through majority votes.

The compact was declared endorsed by Speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota following the intense debate on its 12-point interpretive declaration tabled by Finance Minister Janardan Sharma.

Previously, the current government led by Sher Bahadur Deuba was not able to secure the required mathematical support of the parliament for the passage of this loan agreement because of the protests of the two ruling coalition partners - the CPN-Maoist Centre and CPN-Unified Socialist. But, later, it garnered such support as these partners decided to back the deal with interpretive declaration.    

It may be noted that Bhim Rawal of CPN-UML, Prem Suwal of the Nepal Workers and Peasants Party and Durga Paudel of People’s Front Nepal had voted against the MCC deal during the voting held in the parliament. 

 Under this deal, the US has pledged $500 million for construction of Nepal’s electricity transmission lines .