The government was earlier preparing to close down the operations of Casino Royale, Casino Nepal and Casino Fulbari that owe hundreds of millions of rupees in revenue to the government. But a ministerial level meeting led by finance minister Barsha Man Pun recently decided to provide some time for these casinos to pay the renewal fee and other outstanding dues. [break]
Writing a letter, MoF has asked the tourism ministry to provide appropriate time and opportunity to those casinos which have not cleared dues and to scrap the license only if they defy the final call.
However, MoTCA officials said that the instruction was not clear as no fixed date for the extension has been mentioned in the letter. “We have asked MoF to provide clarity on the instruction. The issue will now be settled by the cabinet,” a senior official at MoTCA said.
MoTCA and the Department of Revenue Investigation (DRI) in December had asked the finance ministry to renew the license of five casinos that have cleared all the dues. MoTCA was making necessary preparation to scrap the license of three casinos.
Responding to the request, MoF has asked MoTCA to renew license of the five casinos. But the meeting also decided to renew the license if the casinos clear renewal fee and agree to clear outstanding dues on installment basis with the end of this fiscal year.
Five casinos -- Casino Everest, Casino Tara, Casino Rad, Casino Venus and Casino Pokahra Grande - had cleared their dues worth more than Rs 80 million after the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on November 22 directed the government to close casinos failing to clear outstanding dues within 15 days.
The PAC had also directed the ministries concerned to recover outstanding dues of Rs 490.18 million from nine casinos. After the deadline expired, the casinos were given final deadline until mid-December to clear dues along with accrued interest as per the existing Financial Act.
Out of ten casinos in the country, only Casino Shangri-La had cleared the dues before the PAC´s instruction.
Casino Anna, which has the highest outstanding dues, has cleared the dues for the current fiscal year. It, however, is yet to clear outstanding dues worth more than Rs 100 million.
The government has already scrapped the operating license of Nepal Recreation Centre (NRC) which was running Casino Nepal, Casino Anna, Casino Everest and Casino Tara.
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