Government Bans TMS for Civil Servants During Office Hours

Government employees who are supposed to provide efficient service to customers are found to be busy with share trading and calculating profit and loss during office hours. The government has banned such activities in government offices.

The Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority had recommended the government to ban such activities, particularly in main administrative center Singha Durbar, after receiving written and verbal complaints that the employees were engaged in share trading while leaving necessary works during office hours unattended.

The commission had written a letter to the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers on August 21 to take necessary action to prevent such activities. Based on the recommendation of the anti-graft body, the Cabinet recently directed government employees not to operate the Trading Management System (TMS) for share transactions during office hours.

The Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers has sent letters to all the ministries, commissions, secretariats, chief secretaries, chief ministers and council of ministers offices of all the seven provinces, arguing that it is not justifiable to indulge in private business in the stock market while serving in the office.

The letter mentions that all the government offices and public bodies should have a system that bars the use of TMS during office hours and make arrangements to monitor whether TMS is running or not at that time using information technology.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli informed through social media that TMS has been banned in government offices. He mentioned, "Private trading in the stock market while serving in a government office is against the law from a legal point of view. This has had an adverse effect on the government works while service seekers have complained they have been affected due to such activities. Addressing this public complaint, the government has now banned the Trade Management System (TMS) in all government offices across the country. All ministries, commissions, secretariats and local level offices have been instructed to make TMS non-functional. I request you to do only government work in the government office."