Violations will result in disciplinary action against the party making the payment, with irregularities and invalidation being the cause. If implemented, approximately 3 billion irregularities in advertising will be prevented.
The Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers has directed all ministries and subordinate bodies to make payments only after the mandatory submission of third-party invoices for government and public advertisements. The Prime Minister's Office on Monday issued a circular to all ministries, secretaries of ministries, constitutional bodies, commissions, secretaries and offices, the offices of the Chief Ministers and Council of Ministers of all provinces and the provincial chief secretaries, directing them to make third-party invoices mandatory for payments made through government advertisements.
On 30th July, Kantipur Daily published a news titled '3.5 billion rupees corruption in government advertisements annually', revealing that the media is causing huge losses to the state treasury by publishing advertisements with discounts of up to 95 percent.
On this issue, the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority sent a letter to the Prime Minister's Office on Sunday, directing it to control irregularities in government advertisements. The very next day, the Good Governance, Corruption Control and Employee Support Section under the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers sent a letter to the relevant ministries and agencies, asking them to implement the authority's directive.
A study has shown that around 3 billion rupees of government advertisements are lost every year due to collusion between agencies and employees. While an investigation is underway into the amount of lost advertisements, a mandatory provision has been made to submit a third-party bill for payment of the amount due. If this is violated, the party making the payment will be brought to justice, citing irregularities and invalidity, an official from the Prime Minister's Office said.
Section 32 of the Advertisement (Regulation) Act, 2076 BS stipulates that a copy of the bill issued by the media outlet for publishing an advertisement must be submitted along with a bill issued by the agency detailing the agency's service charges. Rule 6 of the Advertisement (Regulation) Rules, 2077 BS also makes it mandatory to submit a third-party bill.
From now on, the government body will pay only after the advertising agency submits a bill issued by the agency detailing up to 15 percent of its service charges and the receipt received from the media. Officials claim that the aim of this is to curb the old trend of preparing bills worth lakhs of rupees and sending only thousands of rupees to the media. The Advertisement Board believes that this will help in eliminating widespread leakages caused by collusion between the advertising agency and the employees of the government body that advertises.
‘The provision related to the third party bill was implemented to address the widespread leakage in the advertising market,’ says Board Chairman Laxman Humagain, ‘The leakage mainly occurred due to collusion between advertising agencies and employees of government agencies that advertise. This prevented the media from receiving any significant money and resulted in major leakage in the market.’
Humagain also informed that a complaint has been filed with the Authority regarding this matter and the Authority has written to the Board for investigation and response. He said that the Board has already made legal arrangements to resolve this problem and has sent information to the Authority regarding the provision of the ‘Third Party Bill.’ ‘On that basis, the Commission has decided and a circular has been issued to all agencies through the Office of the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers,’ said Humagain. ‘If this is implemented, it will help control major corruption.’
According to a study conducted by the Communication and Research Initiative (CRI) Nepal at the initiative of the board last year, the size of government advertisements is 10.39 billion 16 million. After the discount given by the media, the size of advertisements is 4.84 billion 43 million. According to the board, advertisements worth 1 billion rupees go directly to Gorkhapatra. 3/4 page advertisements of the Public Service Commission, government banks and financial institutions, courts, and universities are often seen in Gorkhapatra. However, although advertisements worth about 3.84 billion rupees are published in private media, the media receives only 50 to 60 million rupees. Media operators complain that the remaining 3.25 billion rupees are 'lost in the middle'.
Government agencies publish/broadcast advertisements through newspapers, radio, television, online media, hoarding boards, etc. in various contexts such as invitations to bids, public hearings, policies and programs and reports, budget and plan notices, invitations for applications for employment, election purposes, and national days. However, around 90 percent of the funds mobilized from government coffers are misused and corruption occurs.
