With the People’s Democratic Party, PDP set to take office as Bhutan’s fourth democratically elected government, we take a look at what the new government will execute on day one in office as announced during its election campaign. Building up to the 2023-2024 National Assembly Elections, the party unveiled 13 pledges during the campaign that would be endorsed immediately after the formation of the new cabinet.
According to the party’s manifesto, the 13 decisions will be announced during the first cabinet meeting.
These include announcing Saturdays as “off days” where teachers and students do not have to come to schools.
The other is issuing an executive order to revise the tenancy agreement for the residents of Changjiji Housing Colony to allow them to occupy the apartments until their retirement.
Additionally, doing away with the system of collecting Nu 10 for Bhutanese entering the country at Phuentshogling is one of the pledges.
The party also pledged to establish an Economic Development Board with the Prime Minister as the chairperson and a high-powered task force to develop the implementation plan for Nu 15bn economic stimulus programme.
The other pledges are the commissioning of a comprehensive review of the business regulatory processes including at the exit and entry gateways. The review requires to be submitted in three months with concrete recommendations to remove all barriers and to ease the conduct of the businesses.
Similarly, instructing the relevant agency to revise the FDI policy and instructing the Ministry of Education and Skills Development to review the IWP and develop a performance measurement system specific to the needs of the teachers in consultation with RCSC are among the 13 pledges.
The party also committed to review the SDF regulation for tourists in the southern border towns to explore possibility of allowing tourists within the bordering towns without levying the SDF.
Likewise, it also pledged to issue office orders to all the Bhutanese embassies abroad to submit recommendations and ideas on how the embassy can promote inbound tourists to Bhutan.
The party also announced to issue office orders to relevant agencies for the development of a separate action plan to increase the number of tourists to 300,000 annually. The plan is expected to include a review of the SDF and any other regulatory processes that need to be changed in consultation with all tourism stakeholders.
The party also declared to establish a sub-committee of cabinet with working members from relevant agencies to work on regularisation of contract employees.
And instructing relevant agencies to undertake feasibility study for the construction of five airstrips in strategic locations across the country was also announced.
The ten-day election petition period will end on 24th January.
Tashi Yangden
Edited by Kipchu
