CIAA files case against NEA officials, Chinese nationals
KATHMANDU, Aug 26:
The Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) has filed cases against 22 Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) officials and four suppliers, including three Chinese nationals, at the Special Court on charges of being involved in corruption by supplying substandard transformers to the public utility.
The CIAA in its study concluded that the accused have caused a loss of Rs 411.840 million to the NEA and demanded confiscation of property worth the same amount. The CIAA has also sought a penalty worth the equal amount for those involved in the corruption.
While the CIAA has called for a 10-year sentence for all the accused NEA officials, it has demanded additional penalty and sentence in case of the top office bearers of the public utility as they were the decision makers in the deal while other staffers had worked as per their instructions. It has asked for a two-year sentence for the suppliers.
A statement issued by CIAA has listed the accused persons as NEA´s former executive director Dr Jibendra Jha, present Executive Director Rameshwar Yadav, former Acting Executive Director Tikaram BC, former General Manager Chiranjivi Sharma Paudel, Deputy Director Haris Bahadur Pal, Account Officers Suresh Kumar Katuwal, Sushil Prasad Khanal, Manager Shandu Yadav, Assistant Manager Surendra Prasad Paneru and Manager Shekhar Kumar Dutt. Similarly, other accused are Manager Surendra Raj Joshi, Manager Kailash Prasad Atal, central store chief and Engineer Narayan Prasad Chaudhary and store assistant Saroj Shrestha.
Also, Mahesh Prasad Acharya, Dev Sharma Paudel, Krishna Bahadur Thapa, Krishna Bahadur KC, Bharat Rupakhet, Pramod Rijal, Madan Raj Chapagain and Prajwal Pandey have been accused of being involved in the corruption case.
The suppliers implicated in the case are Li Dao Gu, chairman of Huwei Sunlight Electric Company Limited China, the company´s authorized representative Zou Yi Tian, General Manager Hu Zheng Qiang and Nepal´s local representative Amar Rajbhandari. The CIAA has demanded two year sentence for the suppliers.
The CIAA had earlier arrested the NEA officials, including two Chinese nationals, as it was found that hundreds of transformers purchased from the company were of low quality. Lab tests showed that the transformers had aluminum wires instead of cooper wires. The public utility launched a probe into the matter after the use of substandard transformers caused excessive power leakage and frequent explosions.
Meanwhile, the CIAA has corresponded to the concerned department directing the authorities to take departmental action against Divya Raj Pokharel, chief of the Customs Office at the Tribhuwan International Airport, customs officers Min Bahadur Adhikari, Uddhav Dhungana, Laxmi Dutt Joshi, Rajendra Basnet and Dhruva Kumar Regmi for taking bribes.
Also, the CIAA filed case against Bharat Raj Ghimire, Min Bahadur Khatri, Shishir Bahadur Gautam, Bishnumani Khanal, Shiva Prasad Dhungana and Rishiram Jamarkattel for providing bribes to officials for releasing their goods from the customs.
Similarly, the anti-corruption body filed another case at the Special Court against Mohammad Mansoor Khan, secretary at the Bhimpur VDC in Parsa district and Office Assistant at the same VDC, Jitendra Prasad Chauhan for embezzling social security allowance.
Source: Republica
