PAC recommends govt, CIAA to book guilty wide-body aircraft scam

Kathmandu, Jan. 7 : The Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives (HoR) has recommended the government and anti-graft body, the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority, to book the guilty after thorough investigations into their involvement in the procurement of Nepal Airlines Corporation’s wide-body aircrafts.

In a fresh call of the PAC, the government is told to immediately suspend the key officials involved in aircraft procurement. The PAC meeting held Monday, however, revised the sub-committee’s report.

Earlier, a sub-committee formed under the PAC had submitted its report concluding that Rs 4.35 billion was embezzled in the wide-body aircraft procurement for the national flag carrier, NAC.

In its report, the sub-committee had used the terminology ‘ill-intention’ of Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Rabindra Prasad Adhikari in regard to the aircrafts procurement while the term has been replaced with ‘moral responsibility’.

The PAC has asked Minister Adhikari and former minister duo Jiban Bahadur Shahi and Jitendra Narayan Dev to take the responsibility in aircrafts procurement by recommending action against those three leaders.

Similarly, the PAC has directed the government and the CIAA to immediately suspend Tourism Secretary Krishna Prasad Devkota and NAC’s Managing Director Sugat Ratna Kansakar and slap maximum punishment against the two after holding investigations.

The PAC has also directed the government and the CIAA to slap maximum punishment to former tourism secretary Shankar Prasad Adhikari by investigating his involvement in the alleged corruption scam in the procurement saga.

However, the PAC has removed the name of then tourism secretary and incumbent home secretary Prem Kumar Rai from the report. The PAC concluded that his name was removed as his involvement was not confirmed in the detailed study. RSS