Former TEPC boss gets jail term
KATHMANDU, AUG 14 -
The Special Court on Monday convicted former executive director of Trade and Export Promotion Centre (TEPC), Ramesh Kumar Shrestha, on corruption charges.
A three-member bench led by Chairman of the Court Gauri Bahadur Karki sentenced Shrestha to two-and-a-half years in prison and slapped a fine of Rs 1.32 million. The court has also ordered TEPC to confiscate Shrestha’s property worth Rs 1.32 million.
The court found Shrestha paying Rs 1.32 million unlawfully to Sansar Media, an advertising agency, for conducting the 10th SAARC Trade Fair held in Kathmandu in 2010. The court charged Shrestha of violating the Public Procurement Act.
However, the bench concluded that Shrestha cannot be convicted on corruption charges for travel expenses which he had taken without receiving the approval of the Ministry of Commerce and Supplies. The court also gave him a clean chit on the charge in which he had been accused on recruiting TEPC officials unreasonably on contract basis. The court said the amount can be recovered as per the regulation concerning staff facility of TEPC.
The ministry had suspended Shrestha as TEPC chief following the corruption case filed by the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA). The CIAA had charged him with misappropriating Rs 5.8 million in three faulty dealings and had filed a case against him under the clause 17 of the Prevention of Corruption Act 2002.
Shrestha had been charged for taking Rs 126,000 for his trip to participate in a trade fair that was held in Germany in 2010-11. He had been accused on producing ‘counterfeit travel order’ for the purpose.
The anti-corruption watchdog had also sought recovering Rs 4.4 million from Shrestha for recruiting 24 staffers at TEPC’s branch offices in Birgunj, Bhairahawa and Nepalgunj.
Source: The Kathmandu Post
