Concord Institute

Transparency, How we source every claim

Where our information comes from.

We hold public figures to the standard of the documented record, so we hold ourselves to the same standard. Every tracker and brief we publish is built from named, public, verifiable government sources. This page lists exactly where that information comes from, and how we use it.

The two rules behind everything

Our sourcing method follows from two commitments that never change.

RULE 01

Two Primary Documents

No claim about a named individual is published without two independent, primary-source documents. A primary source is the original government record, not a news report about it, and not another organization's summary of it.

RULE 02

Certainty, Labelled

We separate what is documented from what is disputed or unproven, and we attribute contested claims to whoever made them. When a government body fails to disclose information we requested, that failure is itself part of the record, and we report it.

Our government sources

Every tracker draws on official, publicly accessible records. Here is the full map of where each type of information lives.

Decisions WHO SIGNED

Nepal Gazette (राजपत्र)

The authoritative legal record of official appointments, notifications, and government decisions. We use it to establish who formally signed or authorized a given action. Current portal: dop.gov.np, Historical archive (1951 onward): rajpatra.dop.gov.np

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Debate WHAT WAS DISCUSSED

Federal Parliament & Provincial Assemblies

Bills, their status, proceedings, committee records, and voting. We use these to track what was debated, amended, and passed, and how representatives voted. Each of the seven provinces publishes its own assembly records.

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Budget WHAT WAS ALLOCATED

Ministry of Finance

The national budget, the Red Book of line-item allocations, and budget speeches. We use these to establish what money was formally committed, and to what.

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Spending WHAT WAS SPENT

Financial Comptroller General Office (FCGO)

The treasury body that tracks all government expenditure against budget and revenue collection. We use it to compare what was budgeted against what was actually released and spent, the gap that promises often hide in.

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Audit WAS IT DONE PROPERLY

Office of the Auditor General (OAG)

Nepal's constitutional audit body. Its annual reports document irregularities, misspending, and unaccounted funds across government. This is the state auditing itself, on the record, a cornerstone of our accountability work.

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Contracts WHO WON THE BID

Public Procurement & e-Bidding

The government e-procurement system and the Public Procurement Monitoring Office. We use these to track who was awarded public contracts, for how much, and under what process.

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Appointments PUBLIC SERVICE

Public Service Commission (PSC)

Official recruitment, vacancies, and results for the civil service. We use it to verify public-sector appointments and hiring processes.

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Context STATISTICS

Independent data portals (secondary)

For statistical context and historical trends, we consult independent aggregators such as Nepal in Data. These are secondary sources, we cite them by name and, wherever possible, trace their figures back to the original government record before making a claim.

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How a tracker is built

A single accountability piece usually draws on several of these sources at once, following one decision through its whole life.

EXAMPLE

Tracing a public project

Gazette (who approved it) → Parliament (was it debated and budgeted) → Ministry of Finance Red Book (how much was allocated) → FCGO (how much was actually spent) → Auditor General (was any irregularity flagged). Every link in that chain is a primary document, and every link is public.

WHEN RECORDS ARE MISSING

The Right to Information Act

Where a record is not proactively published, we file a formal request under Nepal's Right to Information Act 2007. If a public body does not respond within the legal timeframe, that non-disclosure is documented and reported, because the refusal to be transparent is itself a matter of public interest.

A note on honesty

Government records in Nepal are not always complete, current, or easy to read, much is published in Nepali, and some older material exists only as scanned images. We do not hide these limits. When a source is incomplete or a figure is contested, we say so plainly, and we show our working so that any reader can follow the same trail we did. If we ever get something wrong, we will correct it openly.