The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority summoned former Foreign Minister Arju Rana Deuba for a statement, but the answer is not forthcoming immediately.
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The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA), which is investigating irregularities related to passport procurement, has summoned the then Foreign Minister Arju Rana Deuba and the German company that took the contract for statements. The CIAA has pasted a notice for Rana at his residence in Budhanilkantha-2, while a notice was published in the name of two German companies in the newspaper 'The Rising Nepal' on Thursday.
According to Budhanilkantha Municipality-2 Ward Chairman Rajendra Shrestha, the CIAA team served a summons at Deuba's residence on Ashad 2. 'The summons has been served to appear before the CIAA within 3 days,' he said. The notice asks Rana to appear at the commission's office in Tangal, Kathmandu, to give a statement in the investigation into a complaint alleging corruption in passport procurement. The notice, signed by the investigation officer, states that failure to appear will be punishable by law.
An CIAA official said that Rana sent an email stating that he would not be able to appear within the three days specified after the deadline at his residence. According to him, he is ready to fully cooperate in the investigation, but the email states that he is currently abroad for treatment and cannot return to Nepal immediately. Former Minister Rana and her husband, former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, have been abroad since before February 21.
The Deuba couple had written a letter to the Money Laundering Investigation Department via email and courier last Sunday, requesting them to create an environment for their return to Nepal. The letter stated that although it was impossible for them to return immediately as they were undergoing treatment, they wanted to return to Nepal by July 22.
The Authority has published a notice in the English daily 'The Rising Nepal' on Thursday, asking the two German companies that have taken the passport purchase contract and their representatives who signed the agreement to come in contact 'within the specified date in the email'. The notice has asked Germany's Muehlbauer ID Services and Veridos and their two representatives each to contact the Authority's office or through virtual means. It has also warned that further legal action will be taken as per the prevailing law if they do not appear on the specified date.
A contract agreement was signed on 23 Jestha 2082 for the printing of e-passports in two packages. Under the first package of the agreement, Muehlbauer was responsible for biometrics (pre-enrollment, enrollment, data management and delivery system). Under the second package, Veridos was responsible for printing, purchasing, quality and packing system. The CIAA has summoned Gerhard Maurer and Pavle Rakic, the German representatives of Muehlbauer, who signed the agreement, and Fabiola Bellersheim and Florian Pasklin of Veridos, for statements.
The CIAA has so far arrested 4 people for investigating irregularities in the passport purchase contract. The then Director General of the Passport Department, Tirtharaj Aryal, Director Sunil Kumar KC, the then Accounts Officer Tulsi Prasad Acharya, and the Nepali representative of the German company Muehlbauer, Manindraraj Malla, have been taken into custody by the CIAA. The CIAA has stated that the investigation against them has been moved forward by extending their remand in the special court.
An official of the CIAA informed that the Nepali representative of Veridos, Siddharth Thapa, is absconding. He also said that a detailed investigation is being conducted against more than 35 people in connection with the alleged irregularities in the passport purchase. According to the official, statements of more than 20 government officials and company officials related to the contract process have been taken. Additional people are being questioned during the investigation. The CIAA claims that the initial investigation has revealed irregularities worth about Rs 7.75 billion in the passport procurement process. According to the source, the government also took interest in the matter after the complaint regarding the passport procurement was received by the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers and the CIAA. During that time, the Prime Minister's Office sent a team to the Passport Department to study the contract process and the status of the passport stock. Prime Minister Balendra Shah had summoned the CIAA's Chief Commissioner Prem Kumar Rai and other officials to the Prime Minister's Office and instructed them to proceed with the investigation. An official from the CIAA told Kantipur that the CIAA became active after the Prime Minister expressed dissatisfaction over the failure to proceed with the investigation. According to the Passport Department, a contract agreement was signed for Rs 1.6 billion with Veridos and Rs 6.15 billion with Muehlbauer. The agreement had a condition that the passports should be delivered in the first phase within 240 days, but it was not implemented. The agreement was to provide 6.4 million passports within 5 years. After the passports were not provided as per the agreement, the interim government led by Sushila Karki purchased 700,000 passports from a French company. French company IN Smart Identity France SAS has been printing passports since 2021.
A monitoring conducted by a team from the Prime Minister's Office concluded that German companies were unable to print passports and transfer data. The department estimates that the current stock of passports will last only for the next three weeks. "The stock is dwindling as German companies are not ready to supply passports. We had already informed Foreign Minister Shishir Khanal, assuming that a passport crisis was coming as the agreement with the French company had already ended," said an official from the department.
According to an official of the CIAA, there is a suspicion that irregularities occurred in the contract for purchasing and printing passports. “We are also investigating the suspicion that the company that received the passport contract did not work as per the agreement in collusion,” the official said.
