KATHMANDU, Aug 11: Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) has initiated investigation into controversial deal of Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) with Airbus, in which the national flag carrier flouted prevailing procurement law while deciding to buy two aircraft from the European aircraft manufacturer.
“We took control of crucial documents from NAC on Monday and investigations have begun on the controversial deal that drew flak from the Parliament´s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) as well as Ministry of Finance (MoF),” said CIAA spokesperson Ishwari Prasad Paudel.
He told Republica that the commission will mainly look into legal compliance and possible anomaly in the deal.
The step by the constitutional anti-graft body has brought the year-long initiatives of NAC to move ahead with the deal to a grinding halt. The corporation, meanwhile, has criticized the move saying it will affect the plan to bring in new aircraft, something which is crucial to make Nepal Tourism Year 2011 successful.
On Oct 2, 2009, NAC had decided to buy a wide-body Airbus A330-200 and a narrow-body A320-200. In this connection it had even forwarded the lock-up money of $750,000 to the aircraft manufacturer.
However, PAC and MoF that investigated into the case had concluded that NAC flouted the existing laws and instructed it to scrap the deal. They had further raised question over NAC´s intention of forwarding the lock-up money before getting government guarantee and arranging finances.
NAC was eyeing to procure the aircraft by taking Rs 10 billion in loan from the Employees Provident Fund, but the manager of Fund had set government guarantee as pre-requisite for issuing loan to the ailing national flag carrier. MoF, on the other hand, had set numerous conditions like management and operational reforms in NAC for pledging such guarantee. However, NAC never took initiatives to gain confidence of MoF.
Subsequently, MoF on May 24 had asked the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation (MoTCA), the parent ministry overseeing NAC operations, to direct NAC to recover the lock-up money forwarded to Airbus.
If Airbus refuses to return the lock-up money, it had even instructed MoTCA to recover the money with interest from the concerned NAC officials.
However, top officials at NAC continue to maintain that they never violated Public Procurement Act while undertaking aircraft purchasing process.
Source: http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=22101
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment