CIAA finds no foul play, gives clean-chit to NT plans

KATHMANDU, Jan 22: 

The Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority has found no foul play in the Nepal Telecom´s (NT) tender process to add 10 million mobile lines and has given the operator a clean chit, asking it to go ahead with the plan. 

Suspecting irregularities about three months ago, the anti-graft body had directed the NT to put the project on hold till it completes its investigation. Spokesperson for CIAA Ishwori Prasad Paudel said, "We have given the clean chit to NT and have instructed the operator to go ahead with their plan." 

NT was preparing to call a global tender for the mega project to address the demand till 2015.

CIAA has also given its nod for the procurement of 2 million IP CDMA lines. In its instructions, CIAA has asked the operator to complete the project on time and within the estimated budget. The IP CDMA project worth $ 32 million was put on hold for more than a year because by CIAA. 

NT is targeting to distribute IP CDMA in rural areas to provide better voice and data access to its customers. NT had awarded the tender to China-based telecom solution provider Huawei. 

State-owned operator has not been able to issue new SIM cards for last few months after its stock depleted and it was not able to implement its procurement plans following investigations by CIAA and Public Accounts´ Committee (PAC). 

One of the board members of NT said that NT is suffering because of complications in government procedure. 

"CIAA holds up our projects for months in the name of investigation, which is seriously hampering our business," the member said. He further said if CIAA had not instructed to hold the project, NT would have been able to distribute new SIM cards. NT is facing severe shortage of new SIM cards for past few months. NT was distributing 200,000 SIMs per month on an average. 

Following the CIAA clean-chit, NT is preparing to finalize the deal with vendors this week. NT officials said they will finalize the MoU for IP CDMA this week and will also speed up the project for 10 million mobile lines. NT has been doing groundwork to add 10 million new lines in its GSM network from last year. 

The largest operator had lost its leadership in GSM segment more than a year ago to private operator Ncell. According to the latest statistics of Nepal Telecommunication Authority (NTA), NT has a total subscribers base of 7.04 million out of which 5.42 million are GSM subscribers.

Source: Republica