Hetauda Textiles to be privatised

By Bijaya Ghimire

KATHMANDU, Feb 24 - The government has initiated steps to privatise the state-owned Hetauda Textile Industry, the country’s largest textile industry, which it had closed down on February 12.

A high level official of the Privatization Cell at the Ministry of Finance (MoF) informed The Kathmandu Post that the privatization process would be completed within the next four months and the selection of auditors for the valuation of the industry’s assets was completed Friday.

"The report is likely to be submitted within the next three weeks," said the source.

The cabinet, a few weeks back had decided to close the industry from February 12. And the government has already started the process of clearing employees’ dues. The cabinet also decided to provide Rs. 250 million to settle the workers’ salaries and wages.

"Steps have been initiated for the release of Rs 250 million for clearing employees’ salaries and wages," said a high level official of Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies. "The privatization process is moving ahead simultaneously."

The official at the Privatization Cell also disclosed that the government has selected four other industries for the same. The industries in the pipeline for privatization include Janakpur Cigarette Factory, Lumbini Sugar Industry, Hetauda Cement and Birgunj Sugar Factory.

The same source disclosed that the government has decided to restart its failed attempt to privatize Himal Cement Factory. The government had dropped the idea of privatizing the factory following a low offer during the last year’s tender call.

This is for the first time since the Nepali Congress government opted for privatization in 1992 that all the workers of any public enterprises have been laid-off before the handing over the industry to a private party. However, the lay-off is not involuntary in the sense that the workers had collectively demanded to settle their dues and had expressed their willingness to bid goodbye to the industry.

The government’s decision to lay off workers stems out from bitter past experience where many such enterprises after privatization resulted in massive lay-off. The government realized the need to relieve workers to ensure that the enterprise runs smoothly in private hands. "Hence it was decided to completely close the textile industry before its privatization," the official said.

Established over 25 years ago with assistance of the Chinese government, the textile industry ran into doldrums four years back. It had gone to complete shut down from December 6 last year. Employees of the industry had resorted to strikes from January 7, demanding that the government inject Rs 130 million to kick-start the factory. They had also pressed the government to diversify the industry in collaboration with some foreign companies.

Decision to privatize one of the oldest textile factories of the country comes as a renewed effort of the government to move ahead with privatization policy, which has slacked in the recent years. Despite its pledge to privatize at least seven public enterprises by the end of 2001, the government has been able to send only one public enterprise - Nepal Tea Development Corporation- to private hands.

Their efforts to privatize Butwal Power Company (BPC) by making it the first ever state-owned power company to go to private hands ran into controversy after one of the two bidders pulled out of the race last December alleging irregularities surrounding the deal.

The government restarted the process and now it is at the final stage. With the evaluation of the technical bid over, now hand-over process will immediately follow the evaluation of the financial bid.

Despite its avowed commitment towards privatization, the government still owns 43 such public enterprises. Most of the enterprises in the industrial, service and social sector are running at losses while those in the public utility sector are earning profits mainly because they enjoy monopoly of services.

Till the end of the fiscal year 1998/99, the government has invested Rs 17.01 billion in equity and Rs 47.27 billion as loans so far. However, the return on share investment is as low as 2 per cent.

4 die of flu in Sindhupalchowk

CHAUTARA, Sindhupal-chowk, Feb 24 (PR) - At least four people from fishermen’s community were killed due to an outbreak of viral influenza at Sangachowk VDC-9 over the last week, according to the district administration.

Chief District Officer, Bhanu Bhakta Pokharel, said that two men and two women from the fisherman community succumbed to viral influenza with 30 others affected by the disease.

Pokharel also said that a team of medics had been despatched to the VDC along with medicine.

Govt to appoint Regional Administrators

By Kiran Bhandari

KATHMANDU, Feb 24 - In the next few days or weeks, the government will appoint at least 16 top bureaucrats including five who will govern the five development regions of the country.

Besides replacing the eight secretaries of various ministries who are up for retirement in the next two weeks, the government will also announce the names of the five people who will be filling in the newly created positions as the Regional Administrators.

According to sources, the cabinet has already directed the Ministry for General Administration to prepare a list of the prospective candidates. The ministry has already short-listed 23 names who will be promoted to the special class gazetted officer level posts.

Besides them, there are three acting secretaries who are expected to be appointed full secretaries.

Though the process of appointing the Regional Administrators should have begun right after the new provision was adopted through an Ordinance over a month back, there has not been any appointments.

According to the Civil Service Act, any first class officer with over five years of experience in the post are eligible for promotion which is granted according to their seniority and performance.

The concept of appointing Regional Administrator was brought about in order to solve the existing problems in co-ordination between the Chief District Officers (CDO) and the local police.

According to the Ordinance, a regional security committee is to be formed with local heads of the Royal Nepal Army, local police, Armed Police Force and the local heads of the National Investigation Department as its members. The Regional Administrator will be co-ordinating with Security Committee and have the local police chiefs work under his or her direct supervision.

The Secretaries, who are retiring after two weeks, include Hiranya Lal Regmi of the Ministry of Physical Planning and Works, Daan Bahadur Shahi of the Public Service Commission, Khagendra Basnet of the Ministry of Education and Sports, Biswa Nath Sapkota of the Ministry of Water Resources, Karna Bahadur Chand of the Cabinet Secretariat, Padam Prasad Pokharel of the Ministry of Health, Barun Prasad Shrestha of the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation and Mohan Dev Pant of the Ministry of Industries.

RNAC White Paper on Lauda Air deal

KATHMANDU, Feb 24 (RSS)- The Royal Nepal Airlines Corporation (RNAC) has made it clear that due to a lack of specific act, rule or regulations regarding the procurement of aircraft on lease, the Lauda Aircraft procurement deal was concluded by exercising the right given by Rule 4.6 (g) of the Corporation’s Financial Administration Regulation 2042 BS and Clause 73 (2) (h) of His Majesty’s Government’s Financial Administration Regulation 2056 BS.

In a White Paper regarding the Lauda aircraft procurement deal issued here today, RNAC has also said that the 18 aircraft procurement deals concluded in the past were also taken as precedence. The deals were concluded not through bidding, but through direct negotiations, it added.

Since several sincere attempts to procure an aircraft as suggested by the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) failed to bring any positive results despite repeated calls for tenders, and sealed offers made through major local newspapers and the internet, RNAC, which was in dire need of aircraft, concluded the deal through direct negotiations on the basis of legal advise in this regard, it is stated in the White Paper. As per the international practice of leasing out aircraft, the aircraft owner or operator puts the information on the internet months before the possible delivery date and contact several interested parties at the same time. On receipt of the interested parties’ responses, the aircraft owner concludes a deal with a party, which, its thinks, is the most reliable and is willing to conclude the deal at the earliest. Aircraft owners do not want to delay the deal by requiring premium for bidding nor do they lease out aircraft only through bidding, it is stated.

After the bidder, ICTC informed RNAC that it can provide the B767-300 Ir aircraft of Austrian Lauda Airlines an inspection team of the Corporation reached Vienna on Sept. 21, 2000 and inspected various physical and technical aspects of the aircraft. After the detailed inspection, RNAC had detailed negotiations with Lauda and concluded the procurement deal for 18 months on 27 Sept. 2000. RNAC has, thereafter, been depositing the payments it has to give to Lauda Airlines in the Airlines’ bank account No. 105-105-523 as stated in the lease agreement’s clause 8.4. No other bank account has been used for the payments, according to the White Paper.

The Lauda aircraft was procured as per the Corporation’s 15-year plan, which requires RNAC to operate at least seven wide-body aircraft in international sector, the White Paper said, adding the cost of leasing the Lauda aircraft is quite low compared to the cost of other aircraft leased so far.

Stating that disturbances like the hotel employees’ strike, the strike in protest against Indian film star Rhitik Roshan’s remarks about the Nepalese and other violent activities have adversely affected the outcome of all international flights, it said should the situation remain normal operation of the Lauda aircraft will of course bring good profit to the country.

After deciding to procure the Lauda aircraft, which was needed most to attain the set goals, RNAC sought the government’s recommendation for issuance of foreign currency for a bank guarantee equivalent to one month’s payment plus one month’s payment to Lauda Airlines. The government then gave necessary permission.

RNAC received the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee’s first instruction that required a halt on the process of procuring the Lauda aircraft on Nov. 20,2000, while the Corporation had already made a payment in the form of bank guarantee on Oct. 31, 2000 and had opened the letter of credit on Nov. 16, 2000. This being the situation, RNAC was not in a position to execute the Public Accounts Committee’s instruction as execution of the instruction in that situation meant a serious set back to the Corporation’s credibility, it is stated.

The Public Accounts Committee’s second instruction reached the RNAC on Nov. 30, 2000. But on the same day the Lauda aircraft left Europe and arrived in Kathmandu the next day as per the schedule. RNAC, thus, was not again practically in a position to execute the second instruction as well, it is stated.

Prime Minister, Bhattarai meet

Post Report

KATHMANDU, Feb 24 – There could yet be another change of leadership in the government if the agreement between two senior Nepali Congress (NC) leaders, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala and former PM Krishna Prasad Bhattarai is carried out.

Sources at Baluwatar, PM Koirala’s official residence, said that the two leaders have agreed to a deal according to which Koirala will transfer power to Bhattarai by the coming Budget Session of the parliament. The two senior met for 10 minutes today, when Bhattarai called on Koirala today.

However, other sources close to PM Koirala said that the two leaders only discussed how to find a way out of the current political impasse that has been plaguing both the party and the parliament as a reflection of it.

According to these sources, the two leaders discussed means to maintain the party in the face of the Opposition protests. Five Opposition parties, barring Nepal Sadbhavana Party, have been disrupting the parliament’s demanding the PM’s resignation for his alleged complicity in the RNAC-Lauda Air wide-body jet lease deal.

RNA wants Nepal as regional peacekeeping center

By Satish Jung Shahi

KATHMANDU, Feb 24 - If maintaining peace in troubled areas across the globe wasn’t enough for the Royal Nepal Army (RNA) to earn enough laurels already, the famed force is now aiming somewhere else ... even higher.

In the recent visits by foreign dignitaries to this country, almost all of them have been driven or flown over to Panchkhal, Kavre, to observe the UN Training Center, where Nepalese soldiers spend around six months of training before they’re shipped over to peace keeping missions abroad.

The actual reason, however, for these on-site-visits is actually to push Nepal’s proposal to announce the area as a UN Regional Peacekeeping Center in 2002, the first of its kind in South Asia, say Defense Ministry officials.

It was the same during the visits of British Defense Minister Geoffrey Hoon, Mongolian President Natsagiin Bagabandi and now the Chinese Defense Minister General Chi Haotian who is in town.

During all of these visits, the government has maintained that these visiting dignitaries "were positive" towards the proposal.

If this dream was to materialize, then officials claim that Nepal will once again play a host to holding the Multi Platoon Training Exercise (MPTE), which is attended by soldiers from a number of countries prior to departure for peacekeeping missions.

So what happens in a UN Regional Training Center?

According to RNA high-ranking officials, it is a place where soldiers from various countries, assigned for peacekeeping missions, are trained to work under the same format and style and all under the same roof. The venue keeps changing and is chosen by the UN, officials said. All the expenses for the training are borne by the UN.

The last time such a training was held here in Nepal was in February 2000. RNA personnel were in shoulder-to-shoulder with forces from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and even the United States Pacific Command, then.

"It is a great experience to learn about foreign soldiers," says an RNA high-ranking official. "Plus, it is a great motivation that such an event is happening in one’s own country."

RNA is presently engaged in peacekeeping missions in Lebanon and East Timor. Likewise, defense officials say that Nepali observers are present in Sierra Leone planning out the possibility of deploying RNA personnel for peacekeeping missions there soon.

However, if ever the "grand plan" was to really move ahead, the RNA, which has usually remained media-shy even in the post-democratic years, will have some homework to do.

Many say that the RNA should first publicly clear itself from the accusations clouding over it, before it moves ahead attracting such a major project in peacekeeping missions.

About four months ago, media reports revealed that 15-16 RNA soldiers from the Singhanath Battalion were court-martialed on charges of allegedly selling thousands of rounds of ammunition to Hizbollah, a militant Islamic group fighting against Israel, while stationed in peacekeeping duty in Lebanon.

"The trial shall convey a loud and clear message to the international community that there is no room for offenders in the dignified Nepali Army," an Army brass was quoted in this newspaper as saying.

However, more than almost a year after the first clouds of the controversy in Nepal’s peacekeeping appeared, and months after a committee headed by Brig. Gen. Kiran Shumsher Thapa probed into the matter, the finding of the trial still has not been made public, if there was any.

Observers say this is one issue that the RNA really needs to settle first.

‘Efforts made to uplift education lame’

Post Report

KATHMANDU, Feb 24 - Even as the nation was celebrating the Education Day, Nepal Teachers’ Association (NTA), an organisation of school teachers, today alleged that the efforts made to uplift the education in the nation is lame and incomplete.

"Society is facing problems like violence, terrorism and instability as no efforts are being made to address the problems within the education system," said Keshav Prasad Bhattarai, NTA’s President.

Speaking at a press conference held prior to the association’s fourth general convention which is being held from next week, Bhattarai blamed the government for the poor and deteriorating condition of the classrooms of the secondary schools. "The government has simply ignored to improve those conditions," said Bhattarai.

Just a few months back the teachers’ organisation had demonstrated those problems.

Bhattarai further said that the ways to resolve the Maoist problems will also be discussed in their convention as it is the teachers who are most vulnerable to the Maoist activities.

"The working pattern of the Ministry of Education (and Sports) is no less different from that of the Rana regime as there is still lack of democratic exercises. The Ministry, while formulating any plans and policies, does not show any interest in discussing them with any educational organisations," read the press release that was distributed during the program.