A meeting of the council held at the Prime Minister’s Office picked three former secretaries Navin Kumar Ghimire, Ganesh Raj Joshi and Deep Basnet; former deputy attorney general Rajnarayan Pathak; and former member of the State Restructuring Commission Dr Sabitri Gurung as new commissioners at the anti-graft body.
Talking to reporters following the meeting, Constituent Assembly Chairman Subas Nembang informed that the council took the decision unanimously.
The meeting made the recommendations on the basis of power-sharing between ruling and opposition parties.
According to sources, secretaries Ghimire and Joshi were backed by the ruling CPN-UML and opposition UCPN (Maoist) respectively. Basnet was recommended by the Rastriya Prajatantra Party. A source said that Basnet was especially backed by Minister for Commerce Sunil Bahadur Thapa. Pathak was recommended for the post by Chief Justice Ramkumar Prasad Shah while Gurung was backed by the ruling Nepali Congress.
Ghimire became secretary at the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Defense while Joshi was secretary at the Ministry of Forest, Ministry of Agriculture and also took charge as acting chief of the CIAA. Basnet was secretary at the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport.
Once the parliamentary hearing completes, President Dr Ram Baran Yadav will appoint the five as commissioners.
However, the council meeting didn’t recommend a commissioner for the Election Commission.
“We agreed not to recommend office bearers at the Election Commission since other member posts are also going to fall vacant soon,” Nembang told reporters.
The terms of Chief Election Commissioner Neel Kantha Uprety and three other commissioners will expire in May. A commissioner at the EC, Rambhakta PB Thakur, retired around a month ago.
Lokman Singh Karki and Keshav Baral were appointed as chief commissioner and commissioner at the CIAA some two years ago.
In the past, the council had appointed up to six commissioners at the CIAA. However, there is no clear provision concerning the number commissioners at the anti-graft body.
The five new recommendations, if approved, will take the number of commissioners at CIAA to seven, the highest ever.
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