"CIAA officials were here to file the case against different officials involved in corruption at NTB but due to time constraints we could not register it. The charge-sheet was of around 600 pages and we did not have time to read it today. We will register the case tomorrow," said Supreme Court registrar Nati Babu Lamichhane.
The case is being filed for misuse of funds purportedly for various tourism-related activities.According to CIAA official, around Rs 750 million has been claimed as compensation from the 52 officials. Of the total amount, Rs 330 million has been claimd from Subash Nirola, the suspended acting CEO of NTB.
A meeting held under the chairmanship of Tourism Secretary Suresh Man Shrestha took the decision to suspend Nirola on October 30.
The officials implicated include Nirola, Sushil Ghimire, then chairman of NTB and secretary at the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, and Sarad Chandra Poudel, then director general of the Department of Immigration.
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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