Kathmandu: The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) filed a corruption case at the Special Court against 16 individuals, including former Minister for Information and Communications and current House of Representatives (HoR) member, Mohan Bahadur Basnet on Thursday. The charges relate to alleged irregularities in the procurement of the Telecommunications Traffic Monitoring and Fraud Control System (TERAMOX). Among those charged are former Chairs of the Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA), Digambhar Jha and Purushottam Khanal, former NTA members Dhanaraj Gyawali and Tika Prasad Upreti, NTA Directors Bijay Kumar Raya, Surendra Lal Hada, and Dipesh Acharya as well as Deputy Directors Rewoti Ram Pantha, Suresh Basnet, Hiranya Prasad Bastakoti, Achutananda Mishra, and Sandip Adhikari. Also named as defendants are the CEO of the consulting company Vanrise Solutions SAL (Offshore), Jamal Anouti and from the local agent Connection Trade Link Pvt Ltd (Kathmandu, Nepal), Chairperson Dilip Kumar Gurung and Director Tej Prasad Kharel.
According to CIAA Spokesperson Rajendra Kumar Paudel, the Commission has demanded the recovery of Rs 3 billion 218 million 377 thousand and 182 from each of the defendants. The former Minister is accused of abusing his authority by incorporating an additional program into the TERAMOX procurement process, the one that had not been proposed by the NTA, thereby causing financial loss to the organization. He is also alleged to have failed to ensure proper preparation for the procurement, bypassing both the cost estimation and the procurement master plan.
Meanwhile, Mohan Bahadur Basnet has been suspended from the post of lawmaker following the corruption case filed against him at Special Court. Speaker Devraj Ghimire read out a letter about lawmaker Basnet’s suspension at the House of Representatives meeting on Thursday.
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