Govt orders Cheema out Says investigation will continue

Post Report

KATHMANDU, April 13 - The Ministry of Foreign   Affairs today announced that Mohammed Arshad Cheema, the Pakistan Embassy First Secreatary who was arrested yesterday with a large amount of explosives, leave the country within the next 24 hours.

However, the Ministry has also said that the investigations over the haul of 16 kg of RDX (Research Developed Explosive) shall continue and that "the Government of Pakistan has assured that following the report of the investigations, action will be taken against him (Cheema), if found guilty."

Cheema and his wife were arrested yesterday at a house they were staying for the past few days in New Baneshwore, after police recovered the explosives in a surprise raid.

"Since it is incompatible with his diplomatic duties and inconsistent with Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, HMG has decided that Mr. Cheema should leave the country within 24 hours," a Foreign Ministry release states.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan Embassy in Kathmandu today has accused the Nepalese authorities of violating international conventions on conducting diplomatic relations between states. Pakistan Embassy has also claimed that the Cheema couple has been "framed on false and fabricated charges."

According to a Pakistan Embassy press release, Cheema was scheduled to leave for Pakistan on April 13 after completion of his tenure in Nepal. "The fact that no access was provided to the diplomats of this Embassy who had arrived at the place of incident raises suspicions about the intention of the police that carried out the operation. Subsequently we learnt that the diplomat and his wife were forcibly confined to the first floor of the building whereas the contraband material was allegedly recovered from the ground floor," the release reads.

"It has been repeatedly urged to the Nepalese authorities that such an action constitutes a clear violation of the Vienna Convention and that adherence to its provisions is in the interest of the conduct of diplomatic relations between states," it further states.

Mint department alleged of irregularities

By Bhaskar Sharma

KATHMANDU, April 13 - Department of Mint, under the Nepal Rastra Bank, has indulged in irregular tender calls for the supply of coin blanks and minted coins worth Rs 37.5 million each, documents made available to The Kathmandu Post reveal.

The department invited a tender each for the supply of coin blanks and full coins, but asked the bidders to quote the prices of steel and Nordic gold, both of which can make up a coin, in the same tender.

And by comparing prices of two different alloys of different qualities, the department now is trying to get the contract in favour of steel by citing reasons of economy. And this is what makes grounds to believe that there are irregularities.

Tender documents made available to The Kathmandu Post show that the quoted price of steel is only slightly lower than Nordic gold, but is markedly higher than its real market value. The department even went to the extent of recalling the tender twice to firmly establish in the eyes of the higher authorities that the steel is more economical than Nordic gold.

Chief of the department, Damodar Prasad Sharma defended his stand saying that steel is preferable to Nordic gold as it is cheaper in price. He further stated that its impact on the local gold-silver market is insignificant.

However, when asked why the prices of two different alloys were invited in the same tender for comparison, he failed to give a convincing explanation. He simply said that prices of Nordic gold and steel were invited in the same tender to judge their price differentials.

The Department of Mint has already approved the tender calls, but is yet to be endorsed by the Board of Directors of the central bank. And with the department bent on bringing the new coins into the market within the next five months, a decision on it is likely to be taken soon.

As per the last tender call made on February 20, the quoted price of a blank Nordic gold coin was Rs 1.21, while that of steel blank was Rs 0.86. Similarly, while the cost of supply of the finished Nordic gold coins was quoted at Rs 1.26, the same for electroplated steel coins stood at Rs 0.92.

However, prices obtained from the Internet shows the market price of blank steel coins stands at Rs 29,940 (US $ 400) per ton, which comes to Rs 0.12 per 4 grams, the mass of each steel coin. Even giving a 300 per cent value addition, the price cannot go above Rs 0.50 per blank coin.

Sources close to the central bank alleged that highly placed officials are engaged in irregularities in the coin supply. "By asking the prices of two different alloys side by side for comparison, they have created an impression to the higher-ups that steel would be cheaper," he said.

The latest attempt to introduce bronze-coated steel coins comes years after the central bank began using the better quality Nordic gold. Around 1995, the government had issued such steel coins, which it procured at Rs 1.17 per Re 1 coin.

However, as most of the countries in the world increasingly began using Nordic gold for minting coins because of its long-lasting luster, the central bank switched to Nordic gold, the best available alloy at present. While bronze-coated steel coins cannot last more than four years, coins made of Nordic gold last for over a decade, which is one of the conditions explicitly mentioned in the tender.

Policemen desert outposts

Post Report

PYUTHAN, April 13 - More than 50 policemen left the Tiram-based police striking force outpost in the Tiram VDC today morning for Devisthan area police station. The move for safer area came following heavy attacks from the Maoists in Dailekh and Rukum last fortnight in which more than 80 policemen lost their lives.

Sources close to the police station said three policemen, including an Assistant Sub-Inspector, fled their jobs from Tiram and Machhi area police post before the post was vacated.

Rikh Bahadur Gautam, a local, suspected that the policemen had earlier requested the senior officers for their transfer to safer areas before deserting their hard-earned jobs.

A group of armed Maoists attempted to raid the Tiram-based police outpost on November 19, last year. Locals said the policemen abandoned the post after sensing the possibility of Maoist attack at the post, one of the main Maoist targets in the locality.

Police, however, said that they were vacating the post as the Royal Nepal Army would replace them in the near future. Police outposts have been reduced to only five from 12, in the district since the Maoist insurgency began six years ago.

"Police have applied an all-out policy fearing the safety of their own lives," said Hari Rijal, Vice-Chairman of the Pyuthan District Development Committee.

A number of police posts stationed at vulnerable places from security standpoint have been relocated following the recent Maoist attacks in Rukumkot and Naumoole in mid-western hill districts.

Next decade to zero-in on poverty

Post Report

KATHMANDU, April 13 - The government has once again pointed poverty alleviation as the key objective that would guide the entire development efforts for the coming decade.

This vision for the next decade is explicitly laid down in the country report prepared for the Third United Nations Conference on Least Developed Countries, in which the program of action for 2001-2010 will be adopted. The conference scheduled to be held in Brussels between May 14-20.

The upcoming conference aims to prepare a program of action to tackle the issue of poverty and under development and to combat the problems which globalization has brought on to the LDCs.

The country report has stressed on using Poverty Alleviation Fund as an umbrella program for targeted poverty alleviation programs. In addition, it also contains a review of the country’s performance in various sectors in the past decade and includes Nepal’s expectations from the global program of actions in the future.

Some of the major points of the report were highlighted today by Dr Shankar Sharma, member of National Planning Commission. Dr Sharma was speaking at an interaction program organized with the objectives of unifying the voice of LDCs in the upcoming conference. The program was organized by Action Aid-Nepal.

In fight against poverty, the new strategy stresses on the need to increase the agricultural production by at least 4 - 5 per cent annually. In order to implement the APP successfully, high emphasis has been given to the package programs for essential agricultural inputs.

Similarly, the action plan also emphasised on the growth of non-agricultural sector, which contributes 60 per cent of the GDP. The action plan also has special stress to stimulate the ongoing financial sector reform as it is important not only from the perspective of macro-economics stability but also from the concern of poverty alleviation and unemployment.

The proposed strategy also aims to encourage export-oriented and import-substituting industries with high emphasis on their backward and forward linkages and expansion and diversification of exports. In addition to the targets in the social sector, the report also places strong emphasis on tourism and hydropower.

Various papers were also presented at the interaction program with the objectives of bringing to light the various provisions and arrangements in the World Trade Organization (WTO) regimen that directly or indirectly harms the interests of LDCs and to consolidate the voice of LDCs as a whole. Participants on the occasion not only focussed on the integration of LDCs into the global rules based trading system, but also highlighted the core issues that are of vital interest to LDCs.

Ratnakar Adhikari, General Secretary of South Asia Watch on Trade, Environment and Economics (SAWTEE), on the occasion said that the multilateral trading system has serious flaws that directly contradicts the interests of LDCs.

Highlighting the structural weaknesses of LDCs, he said that the upcoming conference is a window of opportunity for countries like Nepal to further understand the global trading system.

Similarly, Shizu Upadhya of Citizens’ Poverty Watch Forum (CPWF), presenting a paper, focussed on the changes that took place at the global as well as the national level in the past 15 years.

UML to picket Singha Durbar from Monday

Post Report

KATHMANDU, April 13 - The main opposition party CPN-UML along with the alliance of the nine left parties today announced picket program to prevent Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala from entering his office located inside Singha Durbar, starting Monday next week.

According to the plan chalked out by the Valley Co-ordination Committee of the UML, all the supporters of the left parties involved will gather at Tundhikhel around 6 AM and march to Putalisadak and stay-put until Koirala resigns, said Krishna Gopal Shrestha, co-ordinator of the Protest Committee.

When asked what if Koirala here to enters through the newly opened South Gate, Shrestha said, "An honest person will always enter a house from the main entrance, we are to see if Girija Prasad is an honest person or not."

Amik Sherchan, leader of the Sanyukta Jan Morcha Nepal said that if Girija Prasad uses other way to enter the Singha Durbar premises, the left parties would take on the spot decision on what their next step would be.

When questioned if the UML would disrupt the forthcoming budget session of the Parliament if the PM failed to resign, K P Oli, a senior CPN-UML leader, said that the protest program would last for a short while forcing Koirala to resign. "At the moment it is not necessary to think that far, I am confident Koirala will resign now or later ...it is just matter of time."

Oli also criticised the APF ordinance being re-endorsed and said that it was not going to help anything as the government had already got it endorsed once and seen its effectiveness.

NEA finds collecting dues an uphill task

By Surendra Phuyal

KATHMANDU, April 13 - One of the main reasons why hundreds of thousands of consumers across the country routinely bear the brunt of skyrocketing electricity price is the poor financial condition of Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), the state-owned power monopoly.

In order to expand and add more capacity to meet rising demand for electricity, NEA needs constant investment, and that means loans from banks and multi-lateral lending institutions. But these institutions want to safeguard their lending, and therefore pressure the NEA to increase prices so that the utility has enough cash to repay the loan installments.

One way to break this vicious cycle is to ensure NEA is profitable and has enough cash on its own to make investments. Indeed, a few months back, a high-level Task Force headed by Bidhya Nath Nepal, the Executive Secretary at the Water and Energy Commission Secretariat (WECS), recommended that NEA take sweeping measures to recoup electricity dues from consumers.

That would improve the financial condition of NEA and would contribute towards maintaining a cap on electricity prices, which even now is among the highest in South Asia.

NEA officials now say, they are taking the recommendations seriously. But huge problems are being encountered along the way. Though told to improve its financial condition to prevent increase in the price of electricity by the Task Force, NEA is finding it difficult to collect its dues from consumers, mainly from a few government-owned entities and municipalities all over the country.

NEA was to collect Rs 1.7 billion in receivable till the end of last fiscal year 1999-2000. Of which, Rs 580 million was owed by the 58 municipalities and district and village development committees across the country, Rs 310 million was owed by the government’s ministries and offices, while the rest was to be paid by the private sector.

According to Uttar Kumar Shrestha, Director of NEA’s finance department, while the dues owed by the government is in the process of collection, the electricity bills of the municipalities and local bodies, and a few government-owned entities like Nepal Transport Corporation are not likely to be collected any time soon.

"We are trying our best, and are putting in the best of our efforts to collect our receivables as suggested by the Task Force," Shrestha said. "Works are on. We are continuing to consult with the central as well as the local governments."

Among other things, a task force formed to suggest ways to control frequent hike in the price of electricity a few months back had called on NEA to take a few measures to collect its dues on time and reform its financial condition.

The recommendations included, immediate settlement of accounts with the government; holding meetings with the local bodies defaulting on electricity bills to ensure payment of the receivables and signing an agreement with them; cutting off electricity lines of all defaulters; and changing the old billing and collection processes.

NEA officials claim that the process of settling transactions has already started, and that they are currently holding talks with the local bodies’ representatives. "We are adjusting the government’s outstanding tariff with the royalties and interests we are required to pay to the government," Shrestha said. "The Finance Ministry is helping us and things are moving quite positively."

But not all the government bodies are paying their outstanding dues. Entities like Nepal Transportation Corporation (NTC) which runs trolley buses in the Valley, has not cleared its electricity bills of nearly Rs 30 million and the amount is continuing to go up. The Guthee Sansthan (Trust Corporation) too has not cleared its bills of Rs 1.25 million.

Others in the black list include Biratnagar Jute Mills, which was required to clear its bill of Rs 22.6 million at the end of last fiscal year, and most of the country’s 58 municipalities, District Development Committees and Village Development Committees. The local bodies total due stood at Rs 580 million at the end of last fiscal year.

Until recently, the municipalities had been asserting that bulk of the amount in their bills come from the street light and it is not merely their responsibility to clear the street lights’ bills.

NEA held a meeting with the representatives early this year. "And we have promised to meet again," says Shrestha. "They will start paying their bills from now onwards as the government has authorized them to collect house and land taxes" paving the way for the cash-strapped local bodies to collect revenues.

Collecting dues from the private sector, including households and industries, is not a big headache for NEA officials as the former these entities tend to pay their bills within three months of receiving the bills. Or else NEA would disconnect electricity supplies to their houses, hotels or factories.

NTB to launch tourism promotion campaign in India

Post Report

KATHMANDU, April 13 - In an attempt to curb plunging arrival rate of Indian tourists, Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) is launching a massive three-month long tourism promotion campaign in major Indian cities starting May this year.

According to the NTB, the promotion campaign under the theme "Festival of Life" will cover various programs aimed at taping India tourists to Nepal.

One of the major objectives of the campaign is to improve the Nepal’s image in India, which was tarnished by some unfortunate incidents like hijacking of an Indian Airline’s flight in December 1999 and anti-Indian street demonstrations in December 2000.

Tek Bahadur Dangi, Marketing and Promotional Director of NTB informed the gathering that the main attraction of this year’s campaign is the issuance of NTB’s privilege cards to incoming Indian tourists to facilitate them with attractive discounts in various fields during their stay in Nepal.

In addition, the campaign will also be backed by massive publicity programs with the help of both Indian print and electronic media. Under the proposed program, leading television and print media will be invited to Nepal for destination coverage.

Likewise, the NBT is also planning to organize press conference in the four major cities of India, starting from Bangalore on May 19. Besides this, it will also hold meetings with leading Indian tour operators in four major cities and try to attract leading multinational corporation to hold their regional meetings in Nepal.

Similarly, the campaign will also concentrate on attracting Indian film industry to shoot films in Nepal by removing existing difficulties and by providing various facilities through coordinated approach.

Barun Shrestha, Tourism Secretary and Chairman of the NTB said the media have a greater role to make the campaign successful and urged them to cooperate with the government to send positive signals to the world for the promotion of tourism in the country.

Justifying especial attention being paid to Indian tourists, he said that Indian tourists are very important for Nepal as they spend three times more than tourists from other countries.

Rebels loot cash, valuables worth Rs 4m

Post Report

GAIGHAT, April 13 - A group of armed Maoists looted on Thursday night about Rs 4 million in cash and valuables from the branch office of the state-owned Rastriya Banijya Bank at southern Necha Bihibare in the district of Solukhumbu, according to the local police.

The bank is located about 14 km south of Salleri, the district headquarters.

One Maoist cadre, Sijan Kirat, was also killed in his own land-mine blast that was laid on the way to the bank, aiming at the police patrol team. The rebels also looted five guns and 39 rounds of bullets from the bank’s security guards.

Talking over the telephone, non-gazetted officer at the Solukhumbu district administration office, Hom Poudel, said that the rebels robbed Rs 1.3 million in cash and valuables worth Rs 2.5 million from bank’s vault.

The bank source said that the rebels forced the bank’s three security guards to shoulder the bounty up to Lekh Kharka, a village that borders Solukhumbu and Okhaldhunga districts. The guards, however, were released from the village.

The armed rebels had also exchanged fire with police personnel at the Necha-based police post before they attacked the bank. But no casualties were reported during the gunfights from both the sides, police said.

The bank’s regional manager in Lahan, Ganga Budhathoki, said the rebels robbed 435 bags of gold and 18 bags of silver, including the cash amount.

A police team led by Deputy Inspector General of Police, Rajendra Bahadur Singh, visited the site and obtained details of the incident today.

Engineers’ meet concludes

Post Report

KATHMANDU, April 13- The 7th National Convention of Engineers concluded here today.

Speaking at the closing ceremony, chief guest of the function, Speaker Taranath Ranabhat said, "Engineers have a role in guiding the policy makers towards suitable development plans." Citing an example of China that made rapid progress, he said that fruits of development could be achieved if effective and right use of resources is made.

A total of 1,600 engineers from Nepal, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan took part in the three-day seminar which discussed infrastructure development and various other aspects of applications of technology in the region.

The convention was jointly organized by the Federation of Engineering Institutions of South and Central Asia and Nepal Engineers Association (NEA).