Twice within two months, Nepal's government rewrote the rules governing how public money is spent on construction — and the speed of those rewrites tells a story older than any single amendment. The first revision extended deadlines and returned contractor deposits before projects were finished, bending accountability to political pressure; the second introduced genuine reforms around technical evaluation, domestic goods, and digital procurement. Together, they reveal a system caught between the interests of a narrow contractor class and the public's claim on transparent, effective governance