Kathmandu, December 18:

Acting Chief Commissioner of the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) Lalit Bahadur Limbu today said the anti-graft body is planning to combat petty corruption in public contact offices.

“We have been planning to adopt a mechanism to check petty corruption, which is rampant in many public contact offices and which has been posing a threat to good governance,” Limbu told this daily.

He said petty corruption was common in public contact offices like Land Revenue Offices, Land Reform Offices and Tax Offices.

“Though we have been observing the public contact offices since long, we now feel that we should give much attention than in the past to control corruption in such offices,” he added.

“Now our staffs will regularly visit these offices and watch how the public servants deliver the services to the people,” Limbu added. “We will also call the officials to consult with us and reply us if we found any irregularity while delivering services,” he added.

Limbu also added that the CIAA plans to set up regional offices in all five development regions and the government has already been on the plan. “Until then, we plan to directly observe from the centre the corruption cases in the regional offices and district administration offices.”

He also added the CIAA would summon former chairman and members of the disbanded Royal Commission for Corruption Control (RCCC) soon after reviewing the report of the probe commission formed under former judge Madhav Prasad Ojha’s coordination to probe into the RCCC’s extra-judicial activities.

The Ojha panel had suggested the government to file corruption cases against RCCC officials, as they had misused the state coffers while holding posts in an unconstitutional commission formed by the King.