Kathmandu, November 30

Chef-de-mission of Nepal and Vice-president of National Sports Council Pitamber Timsina blamed the Public Procurement Act for all the delays in importing equipment and gears for the 13th South Asian Games.

With the opening ceremony slated for Sunday, most of the sports disciplines have not yet received the equipment to conduct the events and sports gears for athletes.

“We are in the process of getting sports equipment and the respective associations will get them by tomorrow or day after,” he said. “We have separated the venues in two divisions — December 1-6 and December 6-10 — as per the tournament schedule and we are in the final phase of preparation.”

Timsina said the authority had no choice to accept the fact that they failed to meet the deadline on certain areas.

“We should have shown the energy a little bit earlier.

If we look back a month or 15 days ago, the situation was different. We reacted late and struggled to meet the deadline,” he added. “However, the officials from other countries are happy that Nepal completed the construction works on time to organise the Games as per the schedule,” he added.

Timsina, who is also the Deputy General Secretary of Nepal Olympic Committee, said the provisions of the Public Procurement Act were to blame for the errors.

“There are so many provisions in the Act that stop us from working smoothly.

We are grateful to Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli for allowing us to work freely.

Otherwise, it was not possible to organise the Games,” he added.