Nine charged with embezzlement of govt. money

The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority filed a corruption case against nine people, including Bikal Paudel, executive director of Security Printing Centre at the Special Court accusing them of embezzling millions of rupees while procuring electrical equipments for security printing.

Other defendants include Senior Divisional Engineer (Mechanical) of Ministry of Forest and Environment Nabin Kumar Pokharel, Assistant Director of National Information Technology Centre Ramesh Prasad Pokharel, Section Officer of National Inclusion Commission Manikman Maharjan, Section Officer of Kathmandu District Coordination Committee Shirish Upadhyay, retired Account Officer Ram Bahadur Budha, Managing Director of Engineering Marketing Concern Pvt Ltd Rohitman Pradhan, Director of Meptech Building Services Bhuwan Maharjan and Director of Bastushilp Associates Mitra Lal Gurau. The defendants are accused of embezzlement of a huge amount of government money.

The defendants embezzled government money in two projects – Turnkey design, supply, installation, testing and commissioning of electrical, power, and electromechanical infrastructure for high security printing facility and the second project was design, supply, construction, installation, testing and commissioning of underground bulk fuel storage for high security printing facility, according to CIAA.

The projects were implemented at IT Park based in Panauti Municipality, Kavreplanchok. The estimated cost of the first and second contract was Rs 487,061,974 and Rs 202,002,423 respectively. A total of Rs 487,061,973 was paid to the contractor of the first project and Rs 196,245,909 to the contractor of the second project. The projects were completed on 22 October 2019.

The CIAA accused the defendants of preparing and endorsing wrong cost estimates, accepting substandard electric transformers, accepting generators from a country which was not specified in the contract, making advance payment breaching rules and purchasing bulk fuel tank system which was not required.