KATHMANDU, JULY 28
The special parliamentary probe committee formed to investigate alleged entry of unauthorised persons into the Ministry of Finance on May 28 to influence tax cuts in the budget, found no evidence to prove the allegation.
Democratic Socialist Party-Nepal leader Laxman Lal Karna, who chairs the committee meeting, said the committee did not find any evidence to prove that outsiders entered the finance ministry on May 28, a day before the government presented the budget in the House of Representatives. Karna said panel members would sign the report tomorrow and submit it to Speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota. The extended deadline given to the panel to submit its report ended today.
The panel had sought Central Police Forensic Laboratory's help to retrieve the CCTV footage of May 28, as the ministry of finance claimed that the footage in question got deleted after 13 days. The police lab retrieved the footage and submitted it to the parliamentary panel.
UML lawmakers in the panel are likely to write a note of dissent in the panel's report tomorrow.
The CPN-UML has accused the finance minister of letting outsiders influence him to tweak taxes in the budget so as to benefit certain business houses.
UML lawmaker Khagaraj Adhikari, who is a member of the House panel, told THT that his party would not support the panel's argument that there was no entry of unauthorised persons. Adhikari claimed that unauthorised persons were allowed to change tax rates. "Why were call details of concerned persons not provided to the panel? Why were all the concerned people not quizzed?" he wondered. Adhikari said the concerned people should not have refused to undergo polygraph test.
The parliamentary panel's clean chit will pave the way for Janardan Sharma's comeback in the Cabinet with finance portfolio which remains vacant. CPNMC leader Barshaman Pun had said that chances of Sharma's comeback were high.
A version of this article appears in the print on July 29, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
