A case has been filed against 56 people, including 5 former ministers, 9 former secretaries and a former registrar of the Supreme Court, on charges of corruption during the construction of the Pokhara Regional International Airport with Chinese loan investment. The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority filed the case in the special court on Sunday, claiming that the airport construction cost the government 74.343 million US dollars (8.367 billion 367 million 355 thousand 297 50 paisa).

The CIAA has concluded that irregularities were committed by unnaturally increasing the cost estimate of the airport construction and has made 53 Nepalis, including the then minister, the then secretary, and officials of the Civil Aviation Authority, defendants in the process. A case has also been filed in a special court against a Chinese construction company and two of its representatives. The CIAA has stated that cases have been filed against those involved in the irregularities that occurred from the start of the construction process in 2068 to its completion in 2079.

According to the CIAA's assistant spokesperson Ganesh Bahadur Adhikari, a case has been filed against the then Finance Minister Ram Sharan Mahat, the then Tourism Ministers Bhim Prasad Acharya, Deepak Amatya, Ram Kumar Shrestha, and Post Bahadur Bogati. Mahat is a Congress leader. The then Maoist leader Bogati has passed away. Acharya is a UML leader, and Amatya was also a leader of the UML when he was a minister. Later, he joined the Unified Socialist Party led by Madhav Kumar Nepal and is currently in the Nepali Communist Party led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal. Shrestha Nepal 

After retiring as the government secretary, he was the tourism minister in the cabinet led by the then Chief Justice Khilraj Regmi. The authority has made former secretaries Sushil Ghimire, Mohan Krishna Sapkota, Sureshman Shrestha, Suman Prasad Sharma, Bheshraj Sharma, Madhu Kumar Marasini, Surya Prasad Acharya, Suresh Acharya, Ranjan Krishna Aryal and former Supreme Court registrar Ram Krishna Timalsena as defendants. Among them, Ghimire, Sapkota and Shrestha are former secretaries of the Ministry of Tourism.

Suman Sharma is the former finance secretary and Bheshraj Sharma is the former law secretary. Former finance secretary Marasini has been made a defendant for the offense committed when he was a joint secretary in the Ministry of Finance. A case has been filed by the Ministry of Law against former secretary Aryal for the offense committed in his capacity as a joint secretary in charge of tourism. Former secretaries Surya Prasad Acharya and Suresh Acharya have been charged with irregularities while they were joint secretaries of the Ministry of Tourism.

Former registrar Timalsena has been charged with inflating the cost estimate while he was the coordinator of the task force formed to determine the cost of the airport construction. He is also the former chairman of the Inclusive Commission. Former Finance Minister Mahat, former Finance Secretary Sharma and former Law Secretary Sharma and then Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Finance (later retired as Secretary) Marasini have been made defendants for being involved in the decision-making process to approve the cost estimate submitted by the Civil Aviation Authority with an inflated score.

Current Director General (suspended) Pradeep Adhikari has also been made defendants for irregularities in the decision-making process for awarding the contract to the airport construction project, which was declared a project of national pride, and the authority. He is also a defendant in the tax exemption proposal. The CIAA had also filed a case against Adhikari last Wednesday on charges of corruption during the construction of a heliport in Nalinchowk, Bhaktapur. He is currently in pretrial detention.

Two former directors general of the Civil Aviation Authority, Triratna Manandhar and Ratish Chandralal Suman, and then deputy directors general of the Civil Aviation Authority, Suman Kumar Shrestha, Roshan Chitrakar and Rishikesh Sharma, have also been made the main defendants on charges of inflating the cost of the project to the detriment of the government and being involved in the contract agreement process.

A case has also been filed against the then joint secretary of the Ministry of Tourism, Lok Bahadur Khatri, then members of the board of directors of the Authority, Manroop Shahi, Jyoti Adhikari, Phurbachiri Sherpa, Madan Kharel, then director general of the Customs Department and member of the board of directors of the Authority, Muktinarayan Poudel. The then Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Tourism, Hari Bahadur Khadka, then Deputy Directors of the Authority, Narayan Giri, Mahesh Kumar Basnet, then Director Baburam Poudel, then Deputy Director Ashok Kumar Subedi, then Manager of the Authority, Murari Bhandari, then Deputy Director Subarnaraj Upadhyay have been named as defendants by the Authority.

The then Director of the Authority, Pratap Babu Tiwari, then Manager Rudra Prasad Phuyal, then Manager Ram Chandra Subedi, Airport Engineer and Study Task Force Member Purushottam Dangol, then Director and Study Task Force Member Binodananda Chaudhary, then Director of the Authority, Mukunda Prasad Bhandari and then Manager Gangasagarman Shrestha have also been filed on Sunday. Other defendants include the then Professor Rabindra Man Shrestha of the Tribhuvan University Institute of Engineering, Pulchowk, Associate Professor Surya Gyawali and Associate Professor Santosh Kumar Shrestha.

Similarly, the then Deputy Director of the Authority, Hansraj Pandey, the then Deputy Director, Punyaraj Shakya, the then Senior Legal Officer of the Authority, Dwarika Prasad Bhattarai, the then Manager, Punya Prasad Singhada, have also been made guilty. The then Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, Premnath Upadhyay, the Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, Lal Bahadur Khatri, the then Branch Officer of the Ministry of Finance, Kamal Kumar Bhattarai, the wife of the then Tourism Minister and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Authority, Post Bahadur Bogati (to recover the amount due to the death of her husband), Rammaya Bogati, and the wife of the now deceased Deputy Director of the Authority, Dhruvdas Bhochhibhoya, Yamunadevi Shrestha, have also been filed as defendants by the Authority. The Authority has also made the Chinese company CAMC Engineering, which was awarded the airport construction contract, its head, Chinese citizen Wang Bo, and the company's Regional General Manager, Liu Shengcheng, defendants. The Authority has demanded a lump sum amount from the Chinese contractor company and its directors.

Former Minister Bogati's wife Rammaya and the wife of the then Deputy Director of the Authority, Dhruv Das, have been made defendants to recover damages of Rs 8,367,355,297 and 50 paisa. All others have been demanded to recover damages of Rs 8,367,355,297 and a fine of the same amount and imprisonment for 10 to 14 years. In the case of the then ministers and secretaries who were in the special category and above at the time of the offense, the Authority has demanded an additional 3 years of imprisonment.

This is how the irregularities happened

The Civil Aviation Authority's Board of Directors meeting had started a study in 2065 to build a regional international airport in Pokhara to reduce the pressure on Kathmandu Airport.

For that, the Authority had conducted a study from Joshi Associates and fixed the cost estimate. Then, on 6 Asoj 2068, the Board of Directors of the Authority approved a cost estimate of 145 million US dollars excluding VAT for the construction of the airport.

Then the Chinese government proposed to the Nepal government to build the airport under the concept of EPC (Engineering, Procurement-Construction) with loan assistance. The proposal was submitted on 26 Mangsir 2068, stating that the Chinese side would proceed with the project directly through CAMC Engineering and that the cost for this would be 286.526 million dollars (excluding taxes). The meeting of the Authority Board (Steering Committee) led by the then Minister of Tourism Bogati worked to move this forward. It was approved by Tourism Secretary Sushil Ghimire.

It was against the Public Procurement Act to proceed with the process of directly awarding the project to a Chinese company without open competition. Therefore, when questions arose about this, the Authority formed a committee under the coordination of Board Member Manoj Karki to review the cost of CAMC. The committee, in consultation with the Chinese side, prepared a cost estimate of 169,697 thousand US dollars including 3 percent contingency and 13 percent VAT. The Authority Board approved it and invited bids.

Even when the bids were called, Tourism Minister (Board Chairman) Bogati was present. Triratna Manandhar was the Director General of the Authority and Sushil Ghimire was the Secretary. 10 Chinese companies, including CAMC, submitted bids, but all of them failed in the technical evaluation. They were disqualified because they did not meet the provisions such as having worked on airport construction projects worth at least $120 million.

Then, the Authority Board decided to open financial proposals on 31 Ashad 2069, in violation of the Public Procurement Act. Then, out of the three Chinese companies, China International bid $349.283 million, Sinohydro $337.561 million, and CAMC $305.123 million. The bid amount was more than double the initial cost estimate. In addition, these companies did not have experience in working on airport construction projects worth at least $120 million.

But the Chinese Embassy in Nepal sent a letter to the Authority on July 10, 2012 (June 26, 2069) stating that all three companies that submitted bids were ‘qualified, experienced, capable of performing well and reliable for an international airport’. According to the letter written by the embassy, ​​​​the Authority Board moved forward with the process on July 31, 2069.

On July 15, 2069, a committee was formed under the leadership of the then Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Tourism to study the report of the evaluation committee from the Authority Board meeting. After that, CAMC sent a letter saying that ‘negotiations’ could be held with the Authority. In the letter sent by CAMC to the Authority on August 8, 2069, it was mentioned that the cost could be ‘verified’ by mutual agreement between both parties after the completion of ‘detail engineering and project design’.

Three days later, the Ministry of Tourism decided to send a letter saying that it would seek the opinion of the Procurement Monitoring Office, inform the Chinese government side through diplomatic channels about the cost overrun, and that the Authority should consider and decide on the remaining issues. The Procurement Monitoring Office sent a letter stating that such negotiations were against the law. 

The matter even reached the Authority, saying that an illegal decision was about to be made. The Authority gave instructions on 12 Bhadra 2069 to ‘not make illegal decisions’. But ignoring that too, the process was carried forward.

The Council of Ministers meeting on 4 Falgun 2069 gave in-principle consent to carry out the airport work within the cost estimate prepared by the Authority ($145.559 million), but the Authority misinterpreted the Council of Ministers decision and formed a committee under the coordination of the Deputy Director General of the Authority, Suman Kumar Shrestha, to conduct a new feasibility study. The committee ‘agreed’ with the CAMC and submitted a report setting the cost estimate at $264 million. It was approved by a meeting chaired by the then Director General of the Authority, Ratish Chandra Lal Suman.

In the meantime, there was a change in government and Ram Kumar Shrestha became the Minister of Tourism. The Authority then formed a task force under the coordination of former Supreme Court Registrar Ramkrishna Timalsena, in which expert Purushottam Dangol and former director Binodananda Chaudhary were members. The task force advised to proceed with the construction under the ‘EPC’ model within the limit of 215.965 million. The task force also commented that ‘the cost estimate prepared by the Authority ($145 million) was not prepared as per the procurement provisions’.

Then, the Authority Board meeting chaired by the then Tourism Minister Shrestha decided to proceed with the project by maintaining the cost estimate of 215.965 million dollars as per the report of the Timalsena Task Force on 29 Kartik 2070. The decision reached the Council of Ministers through the Ministry of Tourism. The Council of Ministers decided to approve the tender on 11 Poush 2070, stating that the decision of the Authority Board was appropriate.

Then, another complaint was filed with the Authority regarding the excessive cost increase. The Authority disposed of the complaint on 12 Chaitra 2070. At that time, Lokman Singh Karki was the Chief of the Authority. The next month, on 12 Baisakh 2071, the Authority's board meeting formed a committee to draft the agreement. On 14 Baisakh, the board meeting chaired by the then Minister Shrestha approved the draft. After that, the Authority said that no further decision was necessary since the decision in this regard had already been made, and on 5 Jestha 2071, it cleared the way for the process to proceed.

The Ministry of Tourism had written a letter to the Authority on 8 Jestha 2071 to sign the agreement, and an agreement was signed with CAMC on the same day. The Authority wrote to the Engineering Institute, Pulchowk, which will start construction on 24 Bhadra 2071, to study the cost. A team including experts from the Engineering Institute gave a report that the cost would be up to $ 230.065 million. When the Authority filed the case on Sunday, it said that it had misused its academic position and authority and increased the cost with bad intentions.

The Ministry of Finance had written a letter to the Ministry of Tourism on 8 Asoj 2071, questioning the reason for the cost increase. In response, it replied with the argument that the study conducted by the Engineering Institute confirmed it. At the same time, the Ministry of Tourism had also written to the Ministry of Finance to proceed with the loan agreement. At that time, Finance Minister Ram Sharan Mahat, Tourism Minister Deepak Amatya, Finance Secretary Suman Prasad Sharma, Law Secretary Bheshraj Sharma and Tourism Secretary Sureshman Shrestha were present. A meeting held at the Ministry of Finance on 3 Kartik 2071, chaired by Mahat, along with the Law and Tourism Secretary, the then Finance Joint Secretary Madhu Marasini and the then Director General of the Authority Suman, agreed to take a proposal to the Council of Ministers for a loan agreement.

Then the Ministry of Tourism submitted a proposal for a loan agreement to the Council of Ministers. The Council of Ministers decided on 10 Kartik 2071 that the Ministry of Finance would arrange the amount required for the construction of the airport under the EPC model under the Chinese concessional loan. As per the same decision, the Ministry of Finance wrote to the Exim Bank of China on 14 Kartik for a loan agreement.

Then Amatya resigned from the Ministry of Tourism and Bhim Acharya of the UML took over as the Minister. On 8 Chaitra 2072, an agreement was reached between the Nepal-China governments to build the airport as per the latest cost estimate. After that, all kinds of procedural decisions and agreements were made by 13 Falgun 2074, according to the CIAA's indictment. After that, construction progressed and the airport was inaugurated on 17 Poush 2079. The airport has not yet been commercially operated.

In the meantime, questions began to be raised about the quality of the airport's structure. Then, demands for an investigation into the airport construction were raised everywhere. CIAA Chief Commissioner Prem Kumar Rai opened the old file. Then, the investigation progressed. The Public Accounts Committee of Parliament also formed a subcommittee under the leadership of Rajendra Lingden and proceeded with the investigation. The subcommittee had prepared a report last Baisakh with the conclusion that at least 10 billion rupees had been scammed in the airport construction. The same report was sent to the CIAA in last Jestha for further investigation. About 6 months after receiving the report from the accountant, the investigation was completed and the case was filed in the special court.

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56 Who are the defendants?

In the case filed by the CIAA in the special court, the then Finance Minister Ram Sharan Mahat, the then Tourism Ministers Ram Kumar Shrestha, Bhim Prasad Acharya, Deepak Amatya and Post Bahadur Bogati (deceased) have been made defendants.

Other defendants include the then Tourism Secretaries Sushil Ghimire, Mohan Krishna Sapkota and Suresh Man Shrestha, the then Finance Secretary Suman Prasad Sharma, the then Law Secretary Bhesh Raj Sharma, the then Finance Joint Secretary Madhu Kumar Marasini, the then Tourism Joint Secretaries Surya Prasad Acharya, Suresh Acharya and Ranjan Krishna Aryal, the Airport Construction Study Task Force Coordinator and the then Registrar of the Supreme Court Ram Krishna Timalsena, the Director General of the Civil Aviation Authority and the then Project Chief Pradeep Adhikari, the then Directors General Triratna Manandhar and Ratish Chandra Lal Suman.

Similarly, the then Joint Secretary for Tourism Lok Bahadur Khatri, the then Board of Directors members of the NEA Manroop Shahi, Jyoti Adhikari, Phurbachiri Sherpa and Madan Kharel, the then Director General of the Customs Department and a member of the NEA Board of Directors Muktinarayan Poudel, the then Deputy Directors General of the NEA Suman Kumar Shrestha, Roshan Chitrakar and Rishikesh Sharma, the then Under Secretary of the Ministry of Tourism Hari Bahadur Khadka, the then Deputy Directors of the NEA Narayan Giri, Mahesh Kumar Basnet, Ashok Kumar Subedi, Subarnaraj Upadhyay, Hansraj Pandey and Punyaraj Shakya, the then Directors of the NEA Baburam Poudel, Pratap Babu Tiwari and Mukunda Prasad Bhandari are also defendants.