KATHMANDU, AUGUST 3
The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority today filed a corruption case against seven people, including six employees of the Office of Chief Minister and Council of Ministers of Madhes and one business person, accusing them of embezzling millions of rupees while procuring 16,038 bicycles under 'Beti Padhau, Beti Bachau' project.
The anti-graft body has accused each defendant of embezzling Rs 100.33 million. Among the accused are the erstwhile provincial secretary Yam Prasad Bhusal, Engineer Bhagwan Jha, Under Secretary Dileep Pradhan, and Accountant Rajaram Mandal. Chief of Store Section Ram Swarth Mahato and Jit Mohan Kumar Das, a clerk, have also been indicted in the case.
The CIAA also named Renu Agrawal, managing director of Om Satya Sai Pvt Ltd, Birgunj, which had supplied bicycles to the provincial government as one of the defendants. The CIAA has said in the chargesheet that four employees who had evaluated the procurement process submitted wrong report with the intention of causing loss to the government.
The CIAA said Bhusal was responsible for supplying Ambika brand of bicycles but he procured substandard bicycles and caused the government a loss of Rs 100.32 million. The CIAA accused Bhusal of acting against the procurement guideline issued by Public Procurement Monitoring Office.
Engineer Bhagwan Jha, who as chief of Water Resources and Irrigation Department Division Office, Janakpurdham, was supposed to make recommendation for payment of the supplies after inspecting the brand of bicycles okayed the supplied bicycles though they were not of the agreed upon brand. The CIAA said that Jha acted beyond his jurisdiction to okay the procurement process.
The CIAA said that Accountant Rajaram Mandal was involved in making payments for the substandard bicycles supplied to the government. Mahato has been accused of filing wrong report about the supplied bicycles. The CIAA said that Jit Mohan Kumar Das prepared a document without mentioning that the supplier didn't provide bicycles of the agreed upon Ambika brand.
The CIAA had sounded the Office of the Chief Minister and Council of Ministers in Madhes about the breach of contract in September.
CIAA Spokesperson Shyam Prasad Bhandari said the anti-graft body filed a corruption case against the defendants who were involved in procuring nonbrand bicycles against the tender document where the supplier had pledged to supply Ambika brand bicycles. Out of 170,238, bicycles, the supplier provided only 1,200 Ambika brand bicycles.
The CIAA filed another corruption case against four employees of the Madhes government, including Chair of Tender Evaluation Committee Dileep Pradhan and members Surendra Kumar Karna and Rajaram Mandal, and Engineer Bhagwan Jha for selecting wrong company to supply 10,000 bicycles. According to CIAA Spokesperson, Bhandari, the said four employees chose the second lowest bid company which was not eligible for supplying 10,000 bicycles.
Bhandari said as per procurement rules, a company which had done transaction of more than Rs 11.55 crores, was eligible to supply bicycles, but the provincial employees chose the supplier company that had not done annual transaction of Rs 11.55 crores.
A version of this article appears in the print on August 4, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.
