KATHMANDU, Sept 15: The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) brought 201 corruption-related cases involving 1,545 individuals to the Special Court in the fiscal year 2023/24. 

The number of individuals grilled by the anti-graft body last year was more than double the previous year. According to the annual report of the CIAA, it filed 162 corruption cases against 766 individuals in FY 2022/23. 

According to the 34th annual report of the anti-graft body submitted to President Ram Chandra Paudel on Sunday, it received 26,918 complaints related to corruption cases in FY 2023/24. The CIAA received more than 6000 complaints in the review year compared to in the previous year. In 2022/23, the CIAA had registered 20,905 complaints.  

Out of the 201 cases filed in the review year, 58 were related to acquiring financial benefits while 48 were related to bribery. Similarly, 34 concerning fake educational certificates, 33 involving damage to public property, 13 related to revenue leakage, 11 regarding illegal asset accumulation, and 4 miscellaneous cases were brought to the court in the last fiscal year.

Apart from newly registered complaints last year, 9,268 complaints were carried forward from the pending ones of the previous year, making the total number at 36,186 complaints.  The CIAA has claimed that it settled 76.59 percent of the cases through screening and preliminary investigations. In these cases, the CIAA has named a total of 1,545 individuals as defendants, seeking a total of Rs 8.407 billion in damages from them.

The 34th annual report of the CIAA shows major portions of 38.91 percent out of 26,918 complaints were related to the local governments in the last fiscal year. In 2022/23, 35.95 of the total complaints were received against the local governments.  

In the review year, 15.79 percent of the complaints were related to education, 6.98 percent to illegal asset accumulation, 6.49 percent to land administration and 4.71 percent to fake educational certificates.

Complaints related to forestry and environment accounted for 3.82 percent, health and population for 3.68 percent, physical infrastructure and transport for 3.61 percent, home administration for 3.52 percent, finance for 2.13 percent, energy, water resources, and irrigation for 2.10 percent, and drinking water and urban development for 1.61 percent.

The commission often faces criticism for its prompt actions only in small cases related to only the lower level government officials, while letting go of the big and influential officials and political figures without taking any action.

The CIAA’s reports of the past one decade show that the rate of conviction by the special courts peaked at 88.24 percent in 2018/19. However, the subsequent years witnessed a decline in both case registration and conviction rates to as low as 33 percent in 2022/23.

 
• CIAA
 
• 34th_Annual_Report
 
• Prez_Paudel