Although the investigation against the present chief secretary, secretary to the then minister, who were accused of irregularity in the purchase of Teramox technology equipment from the Telecommunication Authority, has been completed, the Abuse of Authority Investigation Commission has been confused in filing the case. Premkumar Rai, the head of the Authority, which has been investigating the Teramox case for about a year, appeared before the Public Accounts Committee of the Parliament on February 15 and said that the conclusion is about to come, but the Authority is still inconclusive.

The Authority has taken statements from the then Communications Ministers Mohan Bahadur Basnet and Gyanendra Bahadur Karki, the then Communications Secretaries Vaikunth Aryal and Mahendraman Gurung, the then Joint Secretary of the Communications Ministry Vinod Prakash Singh, the then Chairman of the Telecommunication Authority Digambar Jha and Purushottam Khanal, among others. Basnet and Karki are members of the House of Representatives from the Congress. Aryal is now the Chief Secretary of the Government of Nepal. Gurung was the Chief Commissioner of the National Information Commission and the then Joint Secretary Singh is now the Secretary of the Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration. The authority itself is confused in the case of so many accessors being connected.  Everyone involved in the

purchase case appeared in the authority and gave a statement. It has been more than a month since the statements of the accused were over. The head of the authority, Rai, informed the audit committee that the statement of the accused in this case was over. After the investigation is completed, the full meeting of authority officials should decide who will file a case or send the investigation report to Tameli. Rai had told the audit committee that 'the statement of the accused has been taken, so the results will come soon'. But after the authority remained 'undecided' for so long, the interest is increasing.

Without becoming a law to record phones and SMS, purchase of equipment worth 1.5 billion

Senior advocate Srihari Aryal, who is also the former president of Transparency International Nepal, comments that the authority could not take a decision due to the pressure and influence of power. Everyone knows that the statements of the accused have been completed, and now the chief commissioner of the authority has given a public statement to the parliamentary committee that the results will come soon, why has there not been prosecution yet? This is a question for the authority itself,' Aryal said, 'How can we believe that there is no pressure and influence of the government in the investigation and prosecution of the authority?' He said that he had to.

Former Chairman of Public Service Commission and former Home Secretary Umesh Mainali says that the Authority should resolve the Terramax case quickly. He commented that since the person in the highest position of the administrative system (Chief Secretary) is involved in this case, it may have a 'negative effect' on other employees, so it needs to be resolved by the authority as soon as possible. "The head of the authority has already given a public statement that the results will be delivered soon, I have also heard the same," Mainali said, "If the statement is over, the investigation has been completed, if what the head of the authority has said is not fulfilled, the credibility of the organization will also be questioned." Teramox He requested to take this into consideration and complete the investigation as soon as possible, as the issue involving the chief secretary in the case and unfair transactions raises questions about the dignity of the entire bureaucracy. 

Authority spokesperson Narahari Ghimire responded that the matter related to the purchase of Teramox equipment is under investigation. "This matter is under investigation, only after it is finished can we say what is going on," he said.

It was decided to install 'Traffic Monitoring and Fraud Control System' of Teramox technology in order to stop revenue evasion through illegal call bypass and regulation of calls coming from abroad. While the bench of the then Chief Justice Kalyan Shrestha and Judge Devendra Gopal Shrestha gave a decision on 21st January 2072 and ordered not to monitor and control people's calls, SMS etc. without enacting a law. 

Why the rush to listen to citizens' phone calls and read SMS?

Basnet was the Minister of Communications in Congress Chairman Sher Bahadur Deuba's Council of Ministers in 2074. Even though the Supreme Court issued a mandate saying that only by making a law, they can control and monitor phone calls, on the contrary, the decision of the Telecommunication Authority to buy Teramox equipment was approved by the then Minister Basnet. Jha was the chairman of the authority at that time. 

In the decision made by Minister Basnet on 23 August 2074, it is said, "The annual program of the Telecommunication Authority submitted to include the above-mentioned program has been approved." Then by adding a separate point, "In addition, the purchase of suitable equipment and systems for international call monitoring and VoIP control" It is said to do. After that, the authority board meeting on October 1, 2074 approved the cost of 3 billion 25 million and started the procurement process.

Based on the same decision made by Basnet, the authority started the consultant selection process on October 20, 2074. On October 17, Secretary Gurung and Minister Basnet approved the file in a phased manner. But after the country went to the general election, the Deuba government did not exist. The topic of buying Teramox also became controversial. The case was stayed after it went to trial.

On June 28, 2078, after Deuba became the prime minister again, the equipment procurement process started again. When the procurement process was started for the second time, Karki was the minister of communication, Aryal was the secretary and Khanal was the chairman of the authority. The issue of suspicious financial transactions with Vikal Poudel, who is now under the control of the Authority, has also been published against the Chief Secretary Aryal while he was the Communications Secretary. While Karki was the Minister of Communications and Khanal was the Chairman of the Authority, a contract was made to buy equipment worth 3.5 billion rupees through Venris Solutions, registered in Cyprus and having an office in Lebanon. At that time, when the file was forwarded by the ministry, Aryal was the secretary. 

1 billion 150 million worth of equipment, 65 million of one laptop

The chairman was Jha when the tender work was carried out by the authority. Among the 16 companies involved in the tender were Venrise Solutions along with SGS SS Geneva, TKC Telecom Inc Canada and NSoft Ltd Hong Kong. Since tender provisions were kept in the agreement to be favorable to certain companies at the beginning, Venraj was selected from among the shortlisted and awarded the contract worth 237 million 70 thousand US dollars. While in the competition, TKC of Hong Kong offered less than 15 million dollars. Irregularities were revealed after the first lot of the equipment purchased from the company that was awarded the contract in the collusion came at an unnatural price. This matter has been under investigation by the authority for a year. The authority had directed Venrise to cancel the contract while raising questions about the process and transparency. By writing letters in December and March 2075, Teramox instructed to cancel all the process of purchasing services.

After the authority sent a letter to the authority with a warning for the third time, the authority canceled the process of awarding the contract to Venrise on May 29, 2076. Efforts to buy by evading the authority's instructions were ongoing. When the authority canceled the contract as per the order of the authority, the contractor company went directly to the Supreme Court without going to the review committee against the decision to cancel the contract with the connivance of the authorities.

2 years later, on 14th Baisakh 2078, the bench of the then Chief Justice Cholendra Shamsher Jabara and Judge Kumar Chudal ordered the contract to proceed from Venrise. After 2 and a half months, Sher Bahadur Deuba became the Prime Minister. After that, Karki went ahead with the controversial plan that could not be implemented in the previous term. Karki agreed to the contract so that the supplementary budget can be spent from the rural telecommunications fund, which is not included in the annual program. Vinod Prakash Singh, Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Communications at that time, raised a comment order on October 17, 2078 for the approval of the supplementary budget for the purchase of Teramox equipment. 5 days later, on October 22, Secretary Aryal said, 'As the matter presented above is necessary for Nepal, it has been ordered by the court and since there is no budget allocation for this purpose in the current year of the authority, I have submitted for a decision to give consent to arrange international call monitoring and call fraud by arranging a supplementary budget.' Submitted that.

The file submitted by the secretary was written by the then Minister Karki as 'Sadar' on October 25. Based on that, the authority proceeded with the purchase of equipment. After seeing the price of the first batch of goods as unreasonable, the airport customs stopped the irregularity.

It was revealed that the authority gave written pressure to release the goods.

It was said that based on the decision made by Congress leader Karki when he was the Minister of Communications, the authority would make an agreement and buy the goods through Venrise within 6 months. Accordingly, in August 2079, equipment valued at 1.15 billion came from Lebanon to the Tribhuvan Airport customs warehouse. However, the abnormally priced goods were stopped by the customs without passing the inspection. After the equipment of the first phase was pulled for investigation, the supply of additional equipment worth about two billion has been stopped. The employees and officials of the Telecommunication Authority themselves rushed to the airport customs to release the goods bought at an unreasonable price.

Customs was given written pressure by the authority to 'release the goods quickly' on November 2, 2079. While the purchasing company should hand over the goods to the authority, the authority's officials rushed to play an intermediary role. Not only that, after the customs took a stand to release the goods only after taking a bond, the authority itself had secured the equipment by putting up a guarantee of Rs 32 crore from the Rural Telecommunication Fund.

On the same day that the goods were passed as a bond, the Customs sent a letter to the Authority, Revenue and Money Laundering Investigation Department and the National Bank on January 10, 2079, asking them to investigate the purchase and payment of Terramax equipment.