The probe report that the team is handing over to Finance Minister Surendra Pandey on Wednesday states that the investigation could not trace down any proof of bad intention of the NRB employees. The report has concluded that the entire note shortage sage was an error made in good faith, a source told myrepublica.com.
The investigation has traced that there were a number of incidents of carelessness and negligence in handling the supply of notes both at the operational as well as policy level, the source said. "We have advised the NRB management to take departmental actions against the officials who were found carelessly handling the sensitive not supply issue," the source added.
However, he said that the probe report has deliberately avoided mentioning names of the persons who were found responsible for the shortage but added that it would not be difficult to pinpoint the names if one reads the report carefully.
The report has also found that the central bank lacks a scientific system to project the demand of notes, which meant that the entire note supply mechanism was running on an ad hoc basis, added the source“ "There was virtually no existence of note supply tracking system. As a result, note department of NRB couldn´t categorically state the date for the arrival for fresh notes when there was acute shortage of notes just before Dashain," said the source.
Commenting over the decision of the banks to pay Indian currency to their depositors, the probe report states that it couldn´t conclude that there was a direct violation of existing foreign exchange rules while issuing Indian currency to depositors. Though some of the banks did issue Indian currency to their depositors, all the procedures were carried out within the legal parameters, said the source.
Based on the nature of note supply in the last five years, we expected that the flow of Indian currency increases during the festival season, added the source.
According to the report, commercial banks released Indian currency worth Rs 350 million during the note shortage period just before Dashain whereas such amount in the last and previous year were Rs 110 million and Rs 330 million respectively.
Amid acute note shortage, the government, on the last week of September, had formed a three-member probe panel led by lawmaker Mangal Siddhi Manandhar to look into the causes that created note shortage. Former Finance secretary Bhanu Prasad Sharma and Financial Comptroller General Arabinda Shrestha are the members of the committee.
Finance secretary briefs speaker
Finance secretary Rameshore Khanal on Tuesday briefed Speaker Subas Nembang about the serious financial as well as social crises that have arose due to failure to endorse the budget from the parliament.
A finance ministry source informed myrepublica.com that the finance secretary told the speaker that the government would soon be unable to make essential expenditures for sensitive areas like hospital and jails if the deadlock continues.
"It will be unethical to deny food allowance to inmates because political parties failed to endorse the budget from the parliament," the source quoted Khanal as telling Nembang.
Khanal also urged the speaker to play a key role in ending the parliamentary deadlock that can drag the country into a disaster.
prem@myrepublica.com
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