KATHMANDU, June 25: High-ranking employees of the civil administration, also known as the permanent government, are themselves involved in massive corruption. Instead of serving the people, government employees from the chief secretary to the secretaries, joint secretaries, and under secretaries carrying the administrative responsibility of the country have started falling into the trap of corruption. Chief Secretary Dr Baikuntha Aryal was suspended from his position after the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) filed a case against him in the Special Court on Sunday.

It is ironic that the chief secretary and secretaries themselves indulge in corruption, sending a negative message to society. The suspension of employees and people’s representatives in all three levels of government, from the lowest to the highest positions, on corruption charges, points to weak governance in the country.

The CIAA claims that there has been an increase in corruption among employees. Last month, the anti-graft body registered corruption cases against 60 government employees. According to the CIAA, it filed corruption cases against 356 employees in the fiscal year 2022/23. Similarly, in the fiscal year 2021/22, it filed corruption cases against 310 employees. More than 125 employees are under suspension due to corruption cases. Some accused have been released on bail. 

Be it the Lalita Niwas land grab scam or the widebody aircraft purchase case, many civil servants are involved in corruption. High-ranking officials from the former commissioner of CIAA to the director general of public institutions are involved in corruption. Chhabi Raj Pant, who was an employee and later became a minister, and Ram Kumar Shrestha are also facing corruption charges.

The then Home Secretary Teknarayan Pandey, who was prosecuted in the case of fake Bhutanese refugee scam, is currently serving a jail term. The incumbent Finance Secretary Madhu Kumar Marasaini, accused of causing a loss of Rs 250 million to the state coffers in the National Payment Gateway procurement process, was acquitted in January 2023. Over the past year, the CIAA has filed cases against three former secretaries on charges of corruption in the Melamchi Water Supply Project. The authority has filed a case against Sanjay Sharma, the then chairman of the Melamchi Water Supply Development Board and the then secretary of the Ministry of Water Supply; Bhim Prasad Upadhyay; and Gajendra Kumar Thakur. The CIAA has demanded between Rs 40 million and Rs 890 million from those individuals, against whom cases were filed last February. The then secretary Upadhyay was charged Rs 42.22 million while the then secretary Thakur was charged Rs 600.49 million. The then Secretary Sharma and Joint Secretary Mukunda Prasad Paudel have been fined Rs 69.783 million each. Similarly, Joint Secretary Rudra Singh Tamang, the immigration chief, has also been involved in a corruption case. The CIAA has demanded recovering Rs 229.17 million from him. Sushil Ghimire, the then chairman of Nepal Tourism Board, was accused of distributing allowances contrary to the Public Procurement Act and regulations, misappropriating funds without purchasing goods, submitting fake bills for renting vehicles and spending more money than necessary in the name of international fairs. Similarly, the then secretary of the Ministry of Forestry and Land Conservation, Sharad Chandra Paudel, has also been charged with corruption. A case filed against 22 people, including an immigration officer, on the charge of human smuggling under the name of visit visas is pending in the district court in Kathmandu.

The CIAA has also filed cases against Tara Bahadur Kunwar, Immigration Officer Kushal Baral, Shailendra Dhakal, Bimal Poudel, Bikas Dangol, Pitambar Rimal, Sujan Fago Limbu, Narbir Khadka, and others who are currently working in the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA). Apart from Khadka, other employees have been released on bail.

Thirteen years ago, the employees of the Department of Foreign Employment and the Department of Immigration were arrested in such large numbers that the entire department got emptied. Employees who once sought transfer to the airport immigration office, then refused to be transferred there. At that time, the CIAA detained 35 people from the Department of Foreign Employment and the Department of Immigration on the same day. Department of Foreign Employment’s section officers Nirmala Neupane, Manju Sharma Subedi, Ajita Sharma, Mukti Prasad Khanal, Ganga Bahadur Bhujel, Gyanendra Sharma, Pabitra Kunwar, Computer Officer Hiradhwaj Karki, non-commissioned officer Shankar Karki, Ramesh Kumar Adhikari, Yogendra Kumar Adhikari, along with Madhav Bhattarai, Keshav Banjara, language translator (contract) Raj Ullah, computer operators Santosh Subedi, Krishna Prasad Khatiwada, office assistant Yashoda Thapa Magar were also detained by the authority. Some of them were prosecuted by the CIAA.

Similarly, the CIAA started an anti-corruption campaign by arresting the Director of the Department of Foreign Employment Ramesh Mainali, Section Officer Deepak Prasad Khatiwada, Non Commissioned Officer Chandrahari Luintel, computer operator Pappu Kumar Sah, computer operator Ram Prasad Pokharel, Arabic language translator Owaidullah Maksud. At that time, the section officers of the Department of Immigration Bhoj Bahadur Aidee, Ramchandra Karki, Nar Bahadur BK, Ramkrishna Parajuli, Dilliram Bhattarai, Diwakar Sharma, Gopiprasad Paudel, Ramchandra Khatiwada, Kamal Bahadur Karki, Bikram Bahadur Somai, Surya Prasad Dahal, Devarshi Sapkota, accounts officer Babuhari Panthi, non-commissioned officers Ramkumar Ojha, Jai Bahadur Singh, Leela Raman Pokharel, Pradeep Prasad Lamichhane, Bishwaraj Kharel, senior immigration assistants Sanjay Nepal, Navraj Koirala, Rudraprasad Marasini, Chiranjeevi Adhikari, office assistant Jaynarayan Napit were also arrested by the authority. CIAA filed cases against some of them while the charges against some others were dropped after investigation.

In 2076, the CIAA filed a corruption case against 38 employees of the Transport Management Office, Ekantakuna, on the charge of corruption for issuing driving licenses to those who failed in the trial. The anti-graft body filed corruption cases against the under secretary to non-gazetted officers of the department.