Speaking at a meeting of the parliamentary Committee on International Relations and Human Rights (IRHR) Thursday, the prime minister said a statement he made at another parliamentary committee -- Public Accounts Committee (PAC) -- on Monday was misinterpreted. [break]
Both the parliamentary committees summoned the prime minister to enquire about the contract after a recent cabinet meeting decided to award it to the Indian company and abort a tender process in which four firms had pre-qualified.
He explained that in talking about ´political compulsion´ he was referring to the April 1 deadline given by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Likewise, he said it was a ´diplomatic matter´ since the issue was discussed at the level of foreign ministers from both countries and it had progressed further before the PAC directive of February 14. The parliamentary committee had directed the government to talk to other countries also interested in supplying the MPRs and send a report to it.
He said that the government decided to choose the Indian company mainly due to time constraints. "We had a compulsion to do something concrete immediately. Otherwise, ICAO would not have taken a flexible decision in this connection," he argued.
No NSC decision on MRP
He also refuted media reports that the National Security Council (NSC) had suggested to the government not award the MRP printing contract to an Indian company, citing security reasons.
He told the parliamentarians that no meeting of the NSC had taken place to discuss the MRP until that date. "I [as prime minister] am chairman of the NSC. I was taken by surprise when I read news reports saying the NSC had taken a decision on the MRP," he said.
Security concern
The prime minister also assured parliamentarians that there was no need for security worries because of the deal.
Explaining it as a technical matter, Nepal instructed an official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) to inform lawmakers if there was anything to worry about. Several lawmakers at the meeting fiercely criticized the government for undermining national security while signing the deal.
They argued that once the contract was awarded to the Indian company, the latter would possess all particulars about Nepali citizens holding MRPs and might be able to misuse them.
"This time we are using only the machine-readable zone in the passports. We are not using any chips. Therefore this need not be an issue at all," said Bikal Poudel, who is offering technical inputs to the ministry on the MRP issue.
According to him, such chips are used only in e-passports. As per the ICAO requirement, the government should introduce an e-passport system by November 24, 2015.
PAC divided
Meanwhile, a marathon meeting of the PAC from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Thursday failed to come up with any decision on the MRP row as the members were divided.
The meeting was a continuation of a meeting that took place Monday when the prime minister appeared in the committee and defended the cabinet decision on the issue.
The nearly eight-hour meeting could not take any decision as a majority of members were for issuing some strict directive against the government for awarding the contract to the Indian company in defiance of the committee´s instruction to award it to one of the four pre-qualified firms.
Other members were against issuing the directive. The PAC will sit again on Friday and take a decision.
"Tomorrow [Friday] we will certainly finalize the issue," PAC Chairman Ram Krishna Yadav said, wrapping up the meeting.
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