The bids for the establishment of the trial center were being opened on Sunday. Four days before that, on Wednesday, Bagmati Province's Minister of Labor, Employment and Transport, Jayaram Thapa, wrote a letter instructing the employees to stop all processes related to the opening of the trial center.
What you should know
The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority has begun an investigation into allegations of irregularities in the trial center being set up for driving licenses in Balaju, Kathmandu.
The CIAA has initiated the investigation after the Bagmati Province government moved forward with the process of establishing a trial center, and the province's Minister for Labor, Employment and Transport, Jayaram Thapa, suddenly stopped the competition at the last minute.
It is said that an investigation has been launched into all the processes from the decision to establish the trial center to the present. 'A complaint has been filed with the commission alleging irregularities in this matter, and audio materials related to this matter have also come. The investigation has already moved forward by linking all these issues,' said an CIAA source. The CIAA was looking into this matter with interest amid suspicions that the trial center operators have been openly coming to the ministry for a long time and showing 'financial temptation' to the employees, urging them to award contracts to them.
The matter has become more controversial after Minister Thapa intervened unnaturally to stop the process of expanding the transport service, contrary to the decision of the Council of Ministers and the ministry's own directives. Minister Thapa has also given seven-point instructions using his own letterhead to stop the tender process related to the operation of the trial center before the procurement process of the concerned office is completed. A dispute had been brewing between employees and ministers for a long time amid suspicions of financial manipulation in the tender process. The issue has come into the limelight after the sudden cancellation of the process while the Office of the Chief Minister and Council of Ministers of Bagmati Province was also secretly investigating the matter.
After Minister Thapa used a personal letterhead 'without using the ministry's official channel', employees have interpreted his move as unnatural interest. For the convenience of service recipients, the 2080 BS Council of Ministers meeting had approved the organizational structure and decided to establish a new transport office in Banepa and expand services to Balaju and Koteshwor. Along with this decision, the Transport Management Office, Balaju had published a notice on 26 Mangsir 2082 and invited sealed proposals for the operation of the trial center.
In order to implement the same decision, the Ministry of Labor, Employment and Transport had written to the office in Asoj 2082 to move the process forward. The government led by Chief Minister Indra Bahadur Baniya had been emphasizing on implementing the decision with the aim of providing easy services to the citizens. The office has announced that it has invited tenders for the operation of a trial center to take the office to the 'full phase' as per the directives of the Council of Ministers and the ministry itself.
After receiving the letter from the minister with the directive to stop, the ministry's secretary, Ram Babu Puri, said that he informed the head of the concerned office that the process would be suspended immediately. 'The matter from the departmental minister will be suspended immediately. I also have no formal information about the letter, so I have no place to speak immediately,' he said. He said that the suspension may have been due to the directives of the Public Accounts Committee. He said that the letter of the committee's directive is yet to be studied and that he will study the matter after coming to Hetauda on Monday.
It is understood that Minister Thapa ordered the suspension of the process based on the Organization and Management Survey Report, the progress of the work of the High-Level Administrative Restructuring Steering Committee, the status of the report of the Provincial Transport Sector Review and Reform Suggestion Committee, and the directives of the Public Accounts Committee.
‘There was no objective study of the benefits and harms and conveniences and inconveniences to the people while expanding the service, there was a political consensus to wait for the final report on administrative restructuring before adding new structures, and the notice was published without coordinating with the ministry,’ the subject paper states. The last date for opening the bids called for the establishment of the trial center was Sunday. However, four days before that, Minister Thapa wrote a letter to the employees and instructed them to stop all processes related to opening the trial center.
