Corruption case filed against secretary, NTC chief and 7 others

The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) has filed a case in the Special Court against nine people including sitting secretary and the managing director of the Nepal Telecom, on corruption charges in the procurement of the national payment gateway.

A case has been filed against then secretary of the Ministry of Science and Technology and then chairperson of the National Information Technology Centre Sanjaya Sharma. The national payment gateway purchased six years ago in collusion with the executive director of the National Information Technology Centre has not come into operation so far. The case has been filed against them because it was found that the property of the government was illegally damaged and misused by purchasing the gateway at an unusually high cost of Rs 250 million without preparing necessary infrastructures, according to the commission.

Other defendants in the corruption case include then executive director of the Centre Pranita Upadhyay, then deputy executive director of the Centre and sitting managing director of the Nepal Telecom Sunil Paudel, Nepal Telecom deputy director Safal Shrestha, then secretary of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce Madhu Kumar Marasini, then assistant director of the Centre Ramesh Prasad Pokharel, account officers Nim Bahadur Oli and Ram Bahadur Budha and computer engineer Ram Sharan Gayak.

The CIAA has asked the recovery of amounts equal to Rs 232 million misappropriated by the former secretary Sharma, NTC managing director Paudel, account officer Budha, then assistant director of the Centre Pokharel and secretary Marasini. Likewise, it claim has been made for the recovery of amounts equal to Rs 1.7 million misappropriated by NTC’s deputy director Shrestha, and over Rs 8.9 million by account officer Oli.