KATHMANDU, Nov 9: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Federal Parliament has directed the government to suspend the bidding for supplying the excise duty stickers immediately.

The committee made a decision to this effect concluding that the domestic firms have been barred from competing in the bidding of excise duty stickers, according to PAC Secretary Rojanath Pandey.
Pandey said that the committee also decided to summon the government authorities concerned including the Ministry of Finance to inquire about the erstwhile decisions made in this connection.

The government had issued a global tender recently to introduce excise duty stickers.
Currently, the Inland Revenue Department has allowed only international firms to participate in the bidding of excise duty stickers. None of the Nepali printing companies have received Intergraf certification, barring them from taking part in the bidding.

However, the government authorities maintain that domestic firms cannot integrate security features as per the requirements of the government, even though they are involved in security printing.
In December last year, the committee had instructed the government to pave the way for private domestic firms to supply excise duty stickers to the IRD.

However, the government did not heed the committee's directives and issued the fresh tender recently. According to the specifications, only the foreign firms could take part in the bidding. During Friday's committee meeting, the lawmakers were miffed at the government for not heeding the committee's directives.

 
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