After the political change of 2046, the Nepal Airlines Corporation has become a shambles due to increased political interference, shareholding tendency and irregularities. About one and a half billion corruption occurred in the famous widebody ship procurement case of recent times.
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If the Nepal Airlines Corporation had continued the process of adding ships according to the business plan prepared 10 years ago when it brought Airbus narrow body aircraft, today the corporation's 6 jets would have been flying to London, Sydney, South Korea and the United States of America.
And, Nepal would not be among the most expensive destinations in the world in terms of air fares, foreign airlines would also have less bids. The corporation's share in the annual air trade of around 2 billion in Nepal would be more than 50 percent. Had it not been for political interference in this nearly 7-decade-old organization, Nepal Airlines would have been spreading Nepal's pride on the world map as the national flag bearer.
However, due to the political interference, division and irregularity that started in the corporation after the political change of 2046, this organization is flying in the opposite direction of its potential. According to aviation expert and writer Maheshwar Bhakta Shrestha, after the advent of democracy, the corporation became a commission-eating centre, in which the Prime Ministers were involved in the interests of the government.
Today, the corporation is drowning in long-term debt of about 52 billion rupees. After a bird collided with a Nigam's narrowbody aircraft during the recently concluded Dasain, it was stranded in Saudi Arabia for a week. A year has passed since the engine repair of another plane was completed, but the lack of necessary decisions and transparency has stuck in Israel. The roots of all these incidents are buried somewhere in corruption, selfishness, victimization of trade unions and incompetent management.
National flag bearers are seen as unofficial ambassadors of any country, carrying the nation's art, culture and identity through the skies to the world. However, in 1958 July (June 2015) with one Dakota aircraft and 97 employees, Nepal Airlines Corporation is not a successful airline company in Asia, it is known as a dying organization in its 66-year journey. Now, the corporation has 1,400 employees to fly four jets.
According to the report on the economic situation and future plans released by the corporation recently, the corporation, which witnessed political changes from panchayat to democracy and republic, bore the burden of calamities like earthquake, blockade and covid. This incident also took away the corporation's source of income. The corporation's last year's income in Nepal's air trade is around 20 billion. This is only around 10 percent of the total market share. According to the
corporation, even after 046, the corporation operated regular flights to 11 international and 39 domestic destinations with two Boeing 727s, two Boeing 757s, three Avros, 11 TwinOtters and a small Pilatus Porter aircraft. Around 046, the corporation was praised by foreigners as the 'best airline' in South Asia. Due to the strength of the corporation, dozens of star hotels were established in Nepal.
From 2043 to 2046, the corporation's planes were bringing foreign tourists to Nepal by flying to Frankfurt in Germany, London in Britain, Paris in France, Osaka in Japan in East Asia, and Shanghai in China. In the year 2046, 2 lakh, 54 thousand foreign tourists entered Nepal. That was qualitative growth at that time. The credit for this was given to the then Nepal Air Service Corporation. In terms of destination expansion and economic progress, the progress made from 2043 to 2049 is the golden time of the corporation. After that, there was a positive situation neither in the expansion of the destination nor in the economic development of the corporation.
Nigam currently has four jets, two narrowbody and two widebody. It has been flying 2 to 4 times a week to 11 international destinations other than Delhi, India. There are daily flights in India. Domestically, the corporation currently has two twin-air planes, which do not have regular daily flights. For attendance, the corporation has been flying to the eastern hilly and Himalayan districts on a weekly basis. However, most of the time, the daily use of the aircraft kept in flight by the Corporation is only 3 hours. Other private airlines are using one aircraft for at least 10 hours of flight per day. The corporation has 1,400 employees but lacks skilled manpower. The data of the corporation shows that competent technicians are migrating.
Corporation has land in 23 districts across the country including Kathmandu. The corporation has been planning for decades to use this land for commercial purposes. However, due to interest groups and commissions, these lands are not being utilized. It has been 5 years since the last Boeing was auctioned by the corporation for Rs 16 crore. However, the ship has reached the point where it is stuck in the process. 5 Chinese ships brought to Nepal 10 years ago for 6 billion 67 crore rupees under Chinese loans and subsidies decided not to fly 5 years ago and issued a notice for auction. However, the corporation management is neither able to fly again nor auction these ships. These above events are connected topics after the advent of the Republic.
According to the study conducted by a dozen Harahari study committees and audit committees under the then House of Representatives formed at various times to reform the corporation, the flag carrier corporation was discredited by the scandal after the change of 2046.
According to an aviation expert, Dinesh Dhamija, a British businessman of Indian origin, was appointed under the pressure of the then Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala as the main agent of the corporation for Europe after democracy. According to Shrestha, the agreement with Dhamija was made under the pressure of Baluwatar in such a way that the corporation would incur losses.
"Dinesh's agreement with the corporation was that the amount of tickets sold in Europe would be deposited directly into his bank account," said Shrestha, who retired as the director of the corporation in 2048. However, he never sent money to Nepal. Instead, after Girija Prasad came back to the government, the then Tourism Minister Chakra Banstola paid Dinesh Dhamija's bill, which claimed a loss of 130 crores. The minister had gone to Europe with a check for that amount.
At that time, the authority had also put the file on hold without investigating the scandal in detail. Study reports by various parliamentary committees have pointed out that the corporation has incurred financial losses of crores of rupees in air charter contracts. According to the report published by the Finance Committee of the Parliament, the fare agreements made with foreign airlines at various times have caused huge financial losses to the National Flag Carrier Corporation.
In the year 2055, the corporation had to bear a loss of around Rs. After this scandal, the Lauda scandal came out in 2057. A case filed by the Authority claiming that there is a loss of around 35 crore rupees in the agreement made by the corporation with Austria's Lauda Air to rent a Boeing-757 aircraft is pending in the Supreme Court. This issue has been raised in the PCI 40 times. However, the identification has not been done yet. The aircraft charter agreement with China Southwest in 2056 was also dragged into the controversy.
In this contract, the corporation had to bear a loss of around 38 crore rupees on the Boeing-757 aircraft leased. In order to increase the capacity of the corporation in the joint government of Congress-UML, an agreement was signed with the China Southwest Airlines Company to lease the aircraft. The corporation had to bear crores of losses due to the process of bringing vessels without tender. Before the
widebody case, there has been no investigation in Nepal about the narrowbody ships purchased by the corporation. However, foreign media have published the news of distribution of commission on their purchase as well.
"The main drawback of buying and leasing ships in corporations is the practice of paying much more than the actual price," says Shrestha, an expert in aviation management, "Research agencies do not investigate deeply." If it is investigated, it seems that the corporation has suffered a lot of losses in the process of buying and renting most of the ships. The government and the Prime Minister are involved in this.
collusion in widebody purchase
The irregularity connected with the purchase of two widebody aircraft for the Nepal Air Service Corporation is known as the 'Widebody Aircraft Scam Case'. From officials/employees of Airline Corporation to Tourism Minister and Prime Minister, high officials are involved in this scam case. However, during the investigation and prosecution, since the case was filed with only the employee level as defendants, the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority is also being questioned.
10 years ago, there were three Prime Ministers (Pushpakmal Dahal, Sher Bahadur Deuba and KP Sharma Oli) and five Tourism Ministers (Congress' Jeevan Bahadur Shahi, RRP's Dilnath Giri, Congress' Sher Bahadur Deuba, who was also in charge of Tourism Minister, Forum Democratic's Jitendra Narayan Dev and UML's Rabindra Adhikari). The current head of the Authority, Prem Kumar Rai, was initially involved in the planning stage before the ship procurement process, later, from the procurement process to the contract, officials including Shankar Adhikari and Shishir Dhungana were also involved.
However, questions are being raised on the authority that only the employees involved from the purchase agreement to the process and the minister Shahi who was involved in the initial process were under investigation and the rest were exempted. In the widebody case, on 22 Chait, 2080, the Authority filed a case in a special court against the then tourism minister Shahi, two former secretaries Shankar Adhikari and Shishir Dhungana, the then general manager of the corporation Sugaratna Kansakar, 24 Nepalis, 6 foreign nationals and 2 companies. A complaint was filed with the authority after the matter came to the surface of the matter of "the process of buying two planes for 230 million US dollars and the plan of leaders, employees, contractors and middlemen caused great damage to the state".
In this case, which was not allowed to be investigated for a long time, a case filed with a demand of 1 billion 471 million rupees has been established by the special court, saying that there was an irregularity by purchasing a ship of 230 tons when there was an agreement to buy a ship with a carrying capacity of 242 tons. On November 21, 2081, the special court acquitted three foreigners, including officers, Dhungana, Kansakar, Budhisagar Lamichhane, joint secretary of the Ministry of Tourism, and Deepak Sharma, a member of AAR Corporation, a company involved in the purchase of aircraft, and acquitted others who were made defendants.
The authority did not touch the cabinet and the political officials who make decisions from the ministry in the purchase case. The special court raised questions that Rai, the current head of the authority, who worked as the tourism secretary for 'buying aircraft', was not investigated. However, during the decision-making process, it was said that people who were not involved in the 'procurement process-agreement' were also 'questioned by making factual errors'. An officer of the authority says that it will be clarified during the appeal of the case. However, questions are also being raised that the authority has not brought the political level into the scope of investigation. After the acquittal of many defendants in the case filed by
itself, the authority is preparing to appeal to the Supreme Court. Even the American government has already convicted Deepak Sharma, the representative of the foreign company that purchased the widebody ship in Nepal. However, the American government has also raised questions about the failure to conduct a deep investigation into the issue of his political, administrative and intermediary nexus in Nepal.
In November 2009, the European aircraft manufacturing company Airbus and the corporation signed an MOU, stating that they would purchase each aircraft for 88 million 99 thousand 317 US dollars. Later, the previous MOU was amended at various times to 1181 million 83 thousand 773 US dollars per aircraft. Not only that, even though they were accused of financial fraud by handing over the contract to a certain company to buy only ships built after 2014 for a certain period, the high level political leadership has not been investigated.
The American government has already fined AAR 55 million US dollars for bribery transactions during the purchase of aircraft. AAR representative Deepak Sharma has also been found guilty in this case in America. The American Ministry of Justice has already fined AAR Corporation 7.5 billion Nepalese rupees after it was proven that Nepali officials were bribed with 2.5 million US dollars during the ship procurement contract process. However, in Nepal, there has not been a thorough investigation on the high-ranking officials involved in the procurement process.
एएआर कर्पोरेसन नेपाली मूलका बेलायती नागरिक दीपक शर्मासमेत संलग्न अमेरिकी कम्पनी हो, जो जहाज खरिद प्रकरणमै नेपालको विशेष अदालतबाट दोषी भइसकेका छन् । शर्मासहित ११ जनालाई २० मंसिर, २०८१ मा विशेष अदालतले दोषी ठहर गरी करिब डेढ अर्ब रुपैयाँ जरिवाना र कैद सजाय सुनाइसकेको छ । विशेषले शर्मासहित सरकारका दुई पूर्वसचिव शंकरप्रसाद अधिकारी र शिशिरकुमार ढुंगाना, वायु सेवा निगमका तत्कालीन महाप्रबन्धक कंसाकार, निगम सञ्चालक समिति सदस्य तथा सहसचिव बुद्धिसागर लामिछाने, जर्मन एभिएसन क्यापिटलकी प्रबन्ध निर्देशक अना टोपा, प्रतिनिधि क्रिस्चियन न्युहेलेन र एएआरका वित्तीय निर्देशक ओलेग कालिस्त्रु, एआरका सीईओ जोन होल्मेस, हाइफ्लाई एक्सका अध्यक्ष पाउलो मिरिपुरी र निर्देशक गेराल्ट थ्रोन्टनलाई दोषी ठहर गरेको छ । ३२ प्रतिवादीमध्ये २१ जनाले भने सफाइ पाएका छन् । विशेषको फैसलाले आरोपितलाई सफाइ दिएको भन्दै यसविरुद्ध पुनरावेदन जाने तयारीमा अख्तियार रहेको स्रोत बताउँछ ।
यसबाहेक राजनीतिक तहका उच्च पदस्थमाथि अनुसन्धान नगरेकामा पनि अख्तियारको आलोचना भइरहेको छ । राजनीतिक पृष्ठभूमिका व्यक्तिमाथि अनुसन्धान नै नगरेको अख्तियारले जहाज खरिदसँग जोडिएको ‘विदेशमा घूस डिल’ मा भने पूरक अनुसन्धान गरिरहेको छ । २०८० चैत २२ मा तत्कालीन पर्यटनमन्त्री शाही, दुई पूर्वसचिव अधिकारी र ढुंगानासहित ३२ जनाविरुद्ध १ अर्ब ४७ करोड १० लाख ८५ हजार ४ सय ८२ रुपैयाँ बिगो मागदाबीसहित विशेष अदालतमा मुद्दा दायर गरिएको थियो । त्यही मुद्दामा ११ जना दोषी ठहर भएकामा पूरक अनुसन्धान भने अख्तियारमा जारी रहेको स्रोत बताउँछ । विशेष अदालतले फैसला गरेको दुई सातापछि अमेरिकी सरकारले घूस खुवाएको अभियोग लागेका कम्पनी एएआरलाई दोषी ठहर गरेको थियो । यसका प्रतिनिधि शर्मा केही महिनाअघि अमेरिकामै दोषी ठहर भइसकेका छन् ।
