By Our Reporter
This week, the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) did some remarkable work by filing two corruption cases on Sunday and Monday.
On Sunday, the CIAA filed a case against the officials of the Pashupati Area Development Trust for embezzling a kilogram of gold while offering Jalhari.
On Monday, it filed a case against sitting secretary Madhu Kumar Marasini and eight others in charge of corruption during the purchase of the National Payment Gateway (NPG). at the Special Court on Monday.
The CIAA filed the case also against Sanjay Sharma, secretary at the then Ministry of Science and Technology and the then chairman of National Information Technology Centre (NITC), Pranita Upadhyaya, then director of the NITC, Sunil Paudel, sitting managing director at the Nepal Telecom, and then deputy-director/executive director of NITC and Safal Shrestha, sitting deputy-director and former director of NITC.
Similarly, the CIAA also presented Ramesh Pokhrel aka Ramesh Prasad Pokhrel, then assistant-director of NITC, Neem Bahadur Oli and Ram Bahadur Budha, then account officers of NITC and Ram Sharan Gayak, a computer engineer at the NICT, as the defendants.
According to the CIAA, Marasini had allocated a budget of Rs. 250 million six years ago for the purchase of the NPG without preparing a feasible infrastructure and with an extensive amount of money in collusion with other defendants. He had purchased the NPG which was not included in the budget and programmes of the ministry without informing senior officials.
The CIAA has claimed the NPG was purchased at Rs. 232,758,077 without consulting banks, financial institutions and stakeholders causing a loss and damage to the Nepal government. Though the budget was allocated six years ago, the NPG has not come into operation to date.
The CIAA has demanded a fine of Rs. 8,977,397 for Neem Bahadur Oli and Rs. 1,799,700 for Safal Shrestha and punishment by Clause 17 (3) of the Prevention of the Corruption Act-2002.
Similarly, the CIAA has claimed to collect the loss amount of Rs. 232,758,077 from the rest of the defendants and punish by Clause 3 (1) of the Prevention of Corruption Act-2002.
Earlier on Sunday, the CIAA had filed a case in the Special Court against two individuals including the then member-secretary of the Pashupati Area Development Trust (PADT) Dr. Pradip Dhakal and PADT then treasurer and current member-secretary Dr. Milan Kumar Thapa on Sunday.
According to the CIAA, the defendants had embezzled gold during the placement of golden Jalhari in the sanctum sanctorum of Pashupatinath Temple. During the placement of the Jalhari, the CIAA found that Dhakal and Thapa had embezzled 1491.718 gm of gold.
The PADT had an agreement with Nepal Bank on February 8, 2021, for the purchase of the gold. It purchased gold at the rate of Rs. 7844.50 per gram on February 11, 2021.
The CIAA has demanded the defendants to be fined the cost of the embezzled gold as per the rate of the purchased date which amounts Rs. 1,1701,781 and punished by Clause 3 (1) of the Prevention of Corruption Act-2002.
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