In the 600 page charge sheet, the CIAA has sought Rs 330m as compensation from the Niraula.The other officials implicated include Sushil Ghimire, then chairman of NTB and former secretary at the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, incumbent secretary Sarad Chandra Poudel, then director general of the Department of Immigration and Ranjan Prasad Aryal, incumbent secretary at Nepal Law Commission . Director General of Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, Ratish Chandra Lal Suman has also been charge sheeted. They were charge sheeted for misuse of funds purportedly for various tourism-related activities.
The CIAA on Thursday went to the Special Court to file the case but it was not registered due to time constraints.
A probe committee formed by the Tourism Ministry under the chairmanship of Joint Secretary Purna Chandra Bhattarai submitted a report to the Public Accounts Committee on October 15, showing that Nirola has been involved in financial anomalies at NTB. Investigations by the CIAA found 49 other officials also involved in anomalies and the case has been filed against them as well.
Nirola has been accused of tinkering with financial by-laws, misusing funds collected from the Trekkers Information Management System (TIMS), hiring staff without announcing vacancies, buying goods from different companies without calling tenders, and renting vehicles and buying alcohol without mentioning the purposes, among other things. All the other officials have been accused of involvement in various acts of financil anomaly.
Nirola has also been accused of publishing advertisements in different media without calling tenders and making payments directly through memos, issuing cheques for payments before a board decision has been taken to that effect, submitting fake bills from foreign trips for reimbursement, and spending Rs 100 million for unnecessary purposes during Nepal Tourism Year 2011, among other things.
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