Nepal: The Nepali Congress has given until the next House meeting for the government and the ruling parties to constitute a parliamentary committee to investigate fraud charges against Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs Rabi Lamichhane.
Rabi Lamichhane
The main opposition, which had been
demanding Lamichhane’s resignation, has presented the formation of the probe
panel as its precondition for smooth functioning of the House. Taking a special
hour of the lower house on Wednesday, Congress lawmaker Ishwari Neupane said
House proceedings would be obstructed from the next meeting if their demands
remain unaddressed.
“Why do you fear investigation?” she
asked. “The reluctance to form a parliamentary probe gives ample room to
suspect [Lamichhane’s] involvement in the fraud.”
He claimed that all the probes relating
to the embezzlement of funds by the Pokhara-based Surya Darshan Cooperative
have found no evidence linking Lamichhane to wrongdoing. The prime minister
further said that police have briefed him that no further investigation is
required against Lamichhane.
Not satisfied with the clarification,
the Congress has demanded an in-depth investigation into the matter. As the
police force takes command from the home ministry, the party doesn’t believe it
can carry out an impartial investigation against the home minister. Thus it is
lobbying for a parliamentary probe.
“The prime minister is not a judge who
can give clean chit to someone,” said Neupane. “There are ample proofs to
establish Lamichhane’s connection to the fraud. If we have formed parliamentary
investigation committees in the past, why not this time?”
The next House meeting has been
postponed by 10 days until March 31. A team of parliamentarians and officials
led by Speaker Devraj Ghimire is travelling to Geneva, Switzerland on Thursday
to participate in an event organised by the Inter Parliamentary Union.
Victims of cooperatives on February 5
had lodged a complaint at the District Police Office, Kaski against three
people including Lamichhane, who also is the chairperson of the Rastriya
Swatantra Party. A probe committee launched by the Pokhara Metropolitan City
found that over Rs1.35 billion in public deposits at the cooperative was
misappropriated.
Kantipur, the Post’s sister
publication, ran a series of stories claiming Lamichhane’s involvement in
misappropriating the deposits of a cooperative to buy shares of Gorkha Media
Network, a media company.
Lamichhane, a former television host
and managing director of a television channel co-founded by Gitendra Babu (GB)
Rai, has been accused of embezzling hundreds of millions of rupees in collusion
with Rai from different cooperatives in Kaski, Chitwan and Butwal.
Rai, who was the chairman of the Gorkha
Media Network, the mother company of the channel, is accused of illegally
transferring Rs300 million from Kaski-based Surya Darshan Cooperative, Rs110.71
million from Chitwan-based Sahara Cooperative, and Rs 100.74 million from
Supreme Cooperative in Butwal, without providing any collateral.
The ruling parties have been claiming
that it would be wrong to demand action against someone merely based on an
accusation in a complaint without substantial evidence.
Dahal on Tuesday had asked the Congress
whether there could be an agreement in taking action against everyone against
whom complaints have been filed with government authorities.
When the Congress was still in the
government, it had objected to the CPN-UML’s calls to dismiss three ministers
including Mohan Bahadur Basnet, then minister for health and population. Basnet
has been under investigation by the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of
Authority for suspected corruption in the procurement of the Telecommunication
Traffic Monitoring and Fraud Control System (Teramocs) for the Nepal
Telecommunication Authority.
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