KATHMANDU, JULY 11
The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority has filed chargesheet at the Special Court against eight persons, including chief administrative officer of Chankheli Rural Municipality, Humla, for their alleged involvement in corruption through embezzlement of development budget.
Those indicted by the anti-graft body are CAO Bishnu Bahadur Shahi engineer Man Bahadur Aidi, sub-engineer Govardhan Bohora, accountant Nabin Regmi and former Ward No 2 chair Harihar Upadhayay, and office-bearers of water tank construction users' committee Gopal Bishwakarma, Prayoglal Jaisi and Nanda Devi Devkota.
Issuing a press release, the CIAA said that the CAO and other employees of the rural municipality had embezzled Rs 648,786 allocated under Chief Minister Self-employment Programme on the pretext of constructing a water tank through the users' committee in Ward No 2 during the fiscal 2021-22.
"CAO Shahi released the amount to the users' committee without completion of construction work of thewater tank. The local level employees forged the bills in collusion with the users' committee for payment."
The amount embezzled on the pretext of constructing the water tank was shared among the defendants later. The rural municipality engineer and sub-engineer had allowed the users' committee to work in contravention of the cost estimates, and terms and conditions and specifications.
During the probe, it was also found that the engineer and sub-engineer prepared a measurement book showing that more work had been accomplished than the actual work in the construction of water tank, and that the CAO had approved the measurement book without confirming the quantity and quality of construction works. Similarly, office-bearers of the users' group had claimed that the payment for construction of water tank in line with the measurement book prepared by the engineer and sub-engineers, and approved by the CAO. The defendants have been charged under section 8 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 2002, seeking maximum punishment under the law along with recovery of the amount in question from each.
A version of this article appears in the print on July 12, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
