Nepal: Former minister, Chinese company charged in Pokhara Intl Airport corruption scam

Kathmandu: Nepal’s anti-graft body on Thursday filed a corruption case at the Special Court against a former minister, current and former senior officials, a Chinese company, and its officials over alleged corruption during the construction of Pokhara International Airport in western Nepal.

It is the fourth time that the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) has filed a corruption case against different individuals over the past one and a half years regarding alleged corruption in the multi-million-dollar project financed by China.

So far, the airport has proved to be a vanity project, as no scheduled flights operate from it. The project was built with a financing of $215.96 million from the China Export-Import Bank and executed by China CAMC Engineering Co., Ltd.

The CIAA said in a statement that it filed the corruption case against former finance minister Gyanendra Bahadur Karki, several former government secretaries, joint secretaries, and other officials, with a total of 11 public officials charged. Karki is the sixth former minister charged in the Pokhara airport corruption scam. Earlier, former ministers Bhim Acharya, Ram Kumar Shrestha, Dipak Amatya, Ram Sharan Mahat, and Post Bahadur Bogati had been named as defendants. Among them, Bogati has passed away.

Likewise, the Chinese contractor and its officials — Chairman Wang Bo and Project Manager Yang Zhigang — have also been charged with assisting officials in committing corruption. The anti-graft body alleged that public officials and the contractor, China CAMC Engineering Co., Ltd., colluded to illegally grant tax and customs exemptions to the Chinese company in violation of the original procurement agreement.

The defendants have been charged with causing losses of NPR 3.62 billion in government revenue through illegally granted tax exemptions. The CIAA said the commercial contract signed between the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal and China CAMC Engineering Co., Ltd. had already included taxes, customs duties, and other fees within the contract price, requiring the contractor to pay them under Nepali law. However, it said an additional implementation agreement was later introduced to exempt the company from those payments, allowing it to receive what the CIAA described as a “double benefit”.

IANS