PM raps Maoists for trying to disrupt talks

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KATHMANDU, Sept 4 – As Maoist rebels continued their extortion spree ahead of a major showdown in the capital, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba today denounced the rebels move accusing them of trying to disrupt the ongoing peace process.

Deuba also warned the Maoists that the government was prepared to ensure safety and security of the people.

Deuba made a fresh appeal to all the people not to run after rumours about the Monarchy and said that the rumours were purported and spread with vested interests. "These rumours have been spread by different quarters for personal gain," he said at a huge gathering of former and present lawmakers of both the Houses of parliament Tuesday. The programme was organised by the Ex-MPs’ Club of Nepal.

The Maoists have already signed a document, during the first round of talks, to stop extortion, threatening people and organising armed mass meets, Deuba said, adding, "It is ridiculous of the Maoists to continue their activities even after this understanding."

"Even after promising to refrain from such activities, the Maoists are openly going ahead with their armed mass meets and forcing people to attend it, which is totally wrong," a furious Deuba said. "They are even threatening bus owners to commute people, forcing restaurant owners to feed people, and everybody is scared by the news that they are forcing a large number of people to come to Kathmandu for a mass meet on September 21."

He further said, "What are they trying to prove by forcing so many people to come to Kathmandu when they know that the Open Air Theatre does not have space for more than 30,000?"

"The government will ensure security of the people," said Deuba asking the Maoists to stop organising such armed meetings at this juncture.

Stating that the new Monarch has vowed to live up to expectations of the people and the late King Birendra, Deuba called on all the political forces to respect and uphold the Constitutional Monarchy and multi-party democracy. He said, "His Majesty the King has always followed the Constitution and will not do anything against it…That is why I again appeal all the people not to run after the rumours against the Monarchy."

Daman Nath Dhungana, former Speaker of the House of Representatives and one of the facilitators of the ongoing government-Maoists talks, said that the main problem could be resolved. "It is within the framework of our Constitution and that everyone has to be ready to amend or change it according to the demand of the people," he added.

Former Chairman of the National Assembly Beni Bahadur Karki called on both sides to become flexible on the negotiating table. "The government has bowed down to some maximum extent but the Maoists have not changed their stance," Karki said. "This way it is certain that the talks are going to fail."

Various leaders pointed out that the present crisis had come up due to carelessness and weakness of those in power and expressed fear that the country might end up losing the achievements of the 1990 movement.

Speaker of the House of Representatives Taranath Ranabhat said that the people have the right to know how the dialogue between the government and the Maosits is faring and where it is heading.

Leader of the main opposition CPN-UML, Madhav Kumar Nepal said, "The Maoist problem has emerged because of the deeply rooted social system of the country, Therefore, there is a need for sweeping reforms of the socio-economic structure. Holding talks with the Maoists alone will not resolve the problem."

‘Landowners cannot take excess land under Land Reforms Bill’

By Rudra Sharma

KATHMANDU, Sept 4 – Thousands of cases filed by the people in their desperate attempt to save their lands from being acquired by the government after the latter’s announcement to impose land ceiling is not going to help the landowners, say legal experts.

The Fifth Amendment of the Land Bill, 2001, which was tabled in the parliament last week, proposes that it will come into force retrospectively from August 16, the day when the land sales were freezed by Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba following a Parliamentary announcement.

What this means is that since the yet-to-be-finalized law has come into effect right from August 16, the Bill, once it becomes law, would annul all the land sharing done on the basis of court verdicts. "Even if a husband and his divorced wife share their land on the basis of a court verdict, the proposed Bill will not entitle them to do so as separate family units," says legal expert and UML lawmaker Subash Nemwang.

Clause 1(2) of the Bill states "It shall be deemed that the Act shall come into force from August 16." Therefore it does not matter whenever the Bill gets endorsed because as soon as it does, all lawsuits filed after August 16th will no more be of any aid in saving excess properties.

"The intention of the presenting of the Land (Fifth Amendment) Act, 2058 is that the Act comes into force from the very day of August 16," said Namwang, who also chairs the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee.

Another legal expert and Nepali Congress MP in the Upper House Radheshyam Adhikari said," As I know it was being discussed whether to make the Bill with retrospective effect. If the Bill includes such retrospective effect, the cases filed intending to save excess property will not be able to do so."

According to experts, the most important provision in the Land Act, 2021 which is the principal Act for the proposed Bill, that redefines the ceiling of land, is the definition of a family. According to which (Land Act 2021) a family unit is constituted of a father, mother and children who have not attained age. The principal Act states father, mother, children who have not attained the age and adopted son constitute one family unit. Each son who has attained the age will constitute separate family unit.

But the present Bill does define a family. Therefore, the provision of the principal Act (Land Act, 2021) will be prevailing even after the amendment of the Act.

According to which father, mother, children who have not attained the age and adopted son constitute one family unit. Each son who has attained the age will constitute separate family unit.

Under the prevailing laws a daughter has to wait until 35 years of age to constitute herself a separate family unit regarding the provision of partition of property in the family. Lawyers say a woman is not entitled to husband’s property even after divorce under present laws. He said elaborating, such women may already have property in their name. If the women could establish separate unit of family through divorce, she will be entitled to hold the property until and unless her husband claims it. The husband under such understanding does not claims the property. So, they may have intended to save property in this way.

Those who have sued for partition of property intend to save property by easily establishing themselves as separate family units. People including some of the bigwigs promptly thronged the courts following the August 17 radical land reform announcement of Primer Deuba. Experts say thousands of cases have been filed for such purpose. Reports from Morang say over 1000 cases were filed in the district, Morang alone. Reports from Birgung confirm similar number of cases filed in the court. Over two hundred cases were filed in Kathmandu district court and the pressure of work was continued until yesterday, said reliable source of the court.

Choppers probe shades another heavy deal

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KATHMANDU, Sept 4 – While parliament’s Public Accounts Committee digs deeper into the Royal Nepal Army’s purchase of two Russian-built Mi-17 helicopters, another deal that involves huge amount of money has completely been ignored by PAC members.

This other deal involves the army’s buying of 5000 Heckler and Kock 6.36 mm rifles manufactured in Germany. The rifles have already arrived and are now lodged in the RNA’s arms and ammunition warehouses.

The information about the deal first appeared in local vernacular newspapers and magazines. These articles questioned why the army was opting for this particular rifle when other more efficient and cheaper alternatives were available in the international market.

The answer to this key question is still not forthcoming from the army side. But that hasn’t stopped top army brass from importing the guns. Already, according to sources within the RNA, 5000 Heckler and Kock rifles have arrived. These guns, fitted with optic vision equipment, are to replace the older 7.62 Self Loading Rifles (SLR) that RNA personnel are presently using. The replacement is to be completed within five years. The older SLR are to be handed over to the Armed Police Force, the paramilitary force set up to fight the Maoist rebels.

However, what has turned out to be an eye-raiser here is the huge amount of money involved. The international market value of such a rifle is estimated to be around US Dollars 861 each – 11 US Dollars more than its counterpart, the more famous M-16, an Internet website on such guns states. That subsequently means the army has already paid US Dollars 4,305,000 for the arrival of first consignment of the German rifles. Many more consignments will be arriving in the next five years.

With such huge amount involved, the possibility of corruption within the RNA cannot be ruled out. The RNA is infamous for being one of the least transparent institutions in the Kingdom where every year, according to the Auditor General’s annual reports, millions of rupees vanish without a trace.

Land reform protest widens rift in RPP

By Binaj Gurubacharya

KATHMANDU, Sept 4 - The continuing protest against the government’s proposed Land Reforms Bill by some lawmakers of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) is threatening to widen the rift in the party that had once been the maker and breaker of governments.

Though five lawmakers from the party have been taking part in the protests against the government’s proposed Land Reforms Bill including setting ceiling on land ownership, the rest of the members have expressed resentment over the move and have stayed away from Parliament.

Even party Chairman Surya Bahadur Thapa has remained absent since the day the protesters led by Pashupati Sumshere Rana joined the Nepal Sadbhawana Party (NSP) in disrupting the House of Representatives.

The opponents and supporters of the protests against the government proposal came face to face Tuesday during the party Central Working Committee (CWC) meeting.

Prominent members including Prakash Chandra Lohani and Kamal Thapa protested the protests.

"They said they did not want the party to appear protesting programmes that are people oriented and the members should rise above political gains and put the interest of the people and the nation first," said a member.

Party members said most of the members are not against the concept of the land reforms and in fact supports the programmes initiated by the government that could benefit most of the people. In fact, even Thapa has quietly expressed his support for the land reforms and annoyance over the continuing protests in parliament by some of the party lawmakers. Despite the protests, the government has already registered the proposed Bill fixing ceiling as 30 ropanies in Kathmandu Valley, 75 ropanies in the rest of the hilly regions and 143 ropanies in the plain lands of Terai.

The party CWC has formed a committee to review the proposed Bill by the government headed by Rana with Balram Ghartimagar, Krishna Charan Shrestha, Govind Bikram Shah, Roshan Karki, Ram Chandra Raya, Renu Yadav, Brijesh Gupta, Baburam Poudel and Bed Prasad Shivakoti as members.

The party is not new to rifts and differences in the party. During the last tenure tussle between Thapa and Lokendra Bahadur Chand had split the party. Even though these two parties played and controlled the governments in the hung parliament with their crucial votes, internal feuds led to the party splitting into two factions.

Both Thapa and Chand became prime ministers and the party was also a partner of a coalition government led by Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba. Now, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, in his effort to minimise the protests against his proposal is trying to send the five RPP protesters abroad. Rana is scheduled to leave for China, Renu Yadav to Sri Lanka, Ram Chandra Raya to Darwin, Africa, Ajaya Pratap Shah and Brijesh Gupta to United Nations. Sending people abroad is not a new idea for Deuba. When he led a coalition government, he had sent five RPP ministers to Bangkok so that they could not defect to the other faction and vote against him.

Ex-Gurkhas to sue British officials today

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KATHMANDU, Sept 4 – Former British Gurkhas have said that a petition will be filed at the Supreme Court on Wednesday against British officials in Kathmandu, who they claimed recently tried to suppress the Gurkha Army Ex-Servicemen Organization’s (GAESO’s) movement.

A senior British officer at the British Gurkhas, Kathmandu had allegedly given out "army orders" recently to stop giving pension and other allowances at the Area Welfare Centers to former Gurkhas supporting the GAESO campaign, according to them.

GAESO has been demanding pension parity and other allowances on a par with their British counterparts, among others. The movement has been an issue of contention between Nepal and Britain for the past few years.

Furthermore, former Gurkhas are also preparing to file cases on an individual basis at the British courts against the British government over the racial discrimination and human rights violations that they were subjected to during their stint in the British Army. The ex-soldiers said that the cases are likely to be filed within the next two months.

"GAESO is preparing to file individual cases against the British government. The filing of the cases will begin within the next two months," said Padam Bahadur Gurung, President of GAESO, speaking at a press conference organized here Tuesday.

Human Rights activist Gopal Shivakoti Chintan said at the conference that a complaint against the British government was lodged at the International Labour Organization (ILO) on August 22.

"GAESO has lodged a formal complaint at the ILO against the British government asking it to look into cases of racial discrimination and human rights violation against British Gurkhas," he said.

However, the complaint has been filed in the name of Independent Confederation of Nepalese Trade Union. Only trade unions, and no non-governmental organizations, can put their complaints at the ILO.

The case would be investigated during November, and the outcome of the investigation would be made public next March, said Chintan, adding that the GAESO has also requested the Red Cross International to furnish details regarding the number of British Gurkhas killed, lost, captured and wounded in the past years.

"No data has so far been furnished regarding thousands of Gurkhas who never came home during and after the world wars," he said. Earlier Gurung informed mediapersons that GAESO took part at the Non-Governmental International Forum at the Durban Conference against racial discrimination recently. Gurung had led a three-member delegation to the conference. Other members included Dr Om Gurung, Committee Co-ordinator of the GAESO International Committee for Justice (GAESO-ICJ), and Hiranya Lal Shrestha, former chairperson of Foreign Affairs and Human Rights Committee. "The Gurkha cause has been well highlighted at the international arena at the Durban conference. Representatives from around the globe were apprised of the Gurkhas’ plight," Gurung said.

"The British government is now under tremendous pressure to resolve the Gurkha issue," he claimed. He also informed that a silent march protesting the British discrimination against the Gurkhas was organized at Durban.

Finnish envoy concerned over grave situation in Nepal

By Damakant Jayshi

KATHMANDU, Sept 4 – Asko Luukkainen, Charge D’Affairs at the Embassy of Finland touched upon two of the hottest issues raging in the Kingdom right now – the government-Maoist dialogue and the Bhutanese refugee verification process, the outcome of which is "disappointing".

He was speaking exclusively to The Kathmandu Post a day after Finnish Minister for Development Aid and Environment Satu Hassi concluded a four-day visit to Nepal and left for Vietnam on Monday.

Luukkainen, while welcoming the talks between the government and the underground CPN (Maoist), expressed his concern over rumours regarding the proposed mass gathering of the Maoists in the capital on September 21. "We are not concerned about the public meeting as such, but we are concerned about the rumours surrounding the meeting".

He admitted that he had heard that some hotels have been approached and petrol pump owners have been asked to provide fuel. "If this is true, I am really concerned … what is going to happen if this meeting is held but it is not my business to guess."

Speaking about the nearly six-year old insurgency raging in the country, the Finnish envoy remarked that people, especially in the far-west where living conditions are hard, must be feeling that the government has not been delivering. "But insurgency is against the law; that is why it makes me quite concerned." He expressed the hope that the two sides would continue to meet and reach some conclusions.

However, he could not shake off a touch of scepticism about the whole affair, fearing the talks process could end in a deadlock. "It (the resolution) is very difficult as the government has announced about the republic and the things which are against the Constitution … On the other hand, the Maoists are saying that these are their demands. So there seems to be a deadlock." However, he hoped that when two sides sit for dialogue "miracles do happen".

Finland has not yet asked its citizens to skip Nepal from their itinerary. "But I follow up the situation all the time and if the situation gets worse, we have to reconsider."

Luukkainen’s candid comments about the ongoing verification process in the Khudunabari camp in Jhapa district would surely warm the hearts of the Shital Niwas mandarins and the Bhutanese refugees and their leaders, although he commended Nepal and Bhutan for moving things forward after a 10-year hiatus.

"So far the progress is very slow, unfortunately very slow … Less than 10,000 people have been verified but we don’t hear any results of that verification and no people have been able to move back to Bhutan so far. So this is according to me is a little disappointing." He expressed the hope the process would be "a little bit faster".

The Finnish envoy revealed that the five European Union countries in Nepal – Denmark, Finland, France, Germany and the UK – have discussed the verification issue and its progress and said that the five nations are also planning a paper on it. He also revealed Finland and some other countries recently contacted the Bhutanese authorities and have expressed their concern about slow verification process.

He warned the situation could be grave vis-à-vis food supply to the refugees in the camp if they continue to remain in the camps. If there is food shortage, the refugees might leave the camps which is a cause of concern, said Luukkainen.

Nepal and Finland have entered yet another area of cooperation – the strengthening of environment and management at the local level – that started a week ago. Targetting the Eastern Development Region, the project with the Scandinavian country’s assistance of 16, 382,000 Finnish markka, is expected to be completed by 2004. Nepal’s contribution in personnel and in kind is 492, 000 markka.

Another Finnish project – mapping of Nepal – is nearing completion. The third and last phase is underway in western Nepal.

Trend towards division of property on rise

By Narayan Wagle and Shyamsundar Shashi

JANAKPUR, Sept 4 - A tendency of dividing parental property is growing in this central Terai region after the government tabled the fifth amendment Bill on Land Act, 1964 in parliament, lifting a ban on land transactions that was imposed about two weeks ago.

Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba on August 16 announced restriction on all forms of land transactions until new law is pushed through by the parliament in a bid to distribute minimum amount of land to landless people.

After the government lifted such ban on Sunday, people have started thronging to the Land Reforms Office (LRO) to divide their property which may fall within the limit of proposed land ceiling among family members.

The Ministry of Land Reforms and Management instructed the district based LROs to proceed with land registrations on condition that the concerned family would be responsible for itself if the divided land is found to have exceeded the limit as defined by the new law.

The Bill tabled in the parliament allows a family to hold only 11 bighas of land in the Terai, 30 ropanies in the Kathmandu Valley and 75 ropanies in the mountain region. Around 10 families have formally divided their parental land among themselves but the number can increase, as many people are yet to be familiar with the government instructions.

With the lifting of such ban on land transactions, many families have felt relief as they can mortgage their land for the time being even to earmark financial resources for household expenses.

Although it has been over a week the Ministry instructed the LROs to prepare records of actual status of land that exceeds the new land ceiling from across the country, the concerned offices have not been able to do so yet.

The LRO employees say that it would take at least another week to update the status of land into eight categories. The LROs have no authentic data to determine actual amount of land the government will acquire after translating the Bill in law in the Terai region. But the people familiar with land issues say that the government will acquire a little amount of land if land ceiling remains intact on 11 bighas.

Dhanusha District Development Committee chairman Ram Charitra Shah said that few farmers - probably one or two per cent - might have land exceeding the new ceiling. "Given the situation, I do not think that the landless people will get any piece of land," Shah said. He doubted that the new land reform would have any long-term impact.

With the growing tendency of land registration, there is a possibility that most of the land may fall within the ceiling fixed by the law. Some farmers, who may actually have excess land, are still feared that the government may compromise with the main opposition - CPN-UML - to further lower the ceiling. The UML is pressing the government for reducing the land ceiling around 4/5 bighas of land.

Given the ongoing uncertainty, the Dhanusha DDC has assigned team of three people to each of the VDCs to collect information on land. On the other hand, district party committee of the CPN-UML has also mobilised its cadre in all the villages to collect data on availability of land in the district.

UML’s Standing Committee member and chairman of land reforms commission, Keshav Badal, is of the view that up-to-date records on land holding pattern will be known to all only after the 10th National Census makes public its final report.

Based on the 1991 National Census, a report of the Badal Commission had stated that there were half a million of land less families and a similar number of families who had minimum amount of land to till from across the country.

"There will be very little amount of land available to distribute among landless people if the Bill is passed as it is," said Badal in a meet-the-press programme here on Monday. Though he did not categorically criticise the government’s new proposal, Badal, however, claimed that the families having more than four bighas of land did not have very good productivity record.

He also pointed out the need for integrated agriculture production and increase in land utility.

Experts say that the government’s announcement on the new land reform is a "decision made in haste without doing proper homework."

"The government jumped to the conclusion without having any statistics on land," says advocate Prakash KC, who has been handling the property-related cases in the district over a decade. KC, however, said that one of the brighter aspects of the proposed land ceiling was that it would encourage people to divert their capital to other productive sectors.

Though the government has given concession on land ceiling to tea estates in the eastern part of the country, nothing has been mentioned in the Bill to west of Kosi River to Bara district, where farmers have mango gardens and bamboo farming in a large tracts of land.

Slump in autumn mountaineering

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KATHMANDU, Sept 4 - The number of mountaineering expedition teams seeking permission to climb various Himalayan peaks in Nepal during the autumn season has dropped to 22, officials said Tuesday.

The number is much less than the 64 teams, which had climbed various peaks last year during the autumn season, popular time for mountaineers to scale smaller peaks.

"This is the lowest number of applicants we have had for the popular autumn season in the past few years," said Ganesh Karki, head of the Department of Mountaineering, under the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation.

Karki said the government has granted permission to all these 22 teams from nine different countries to climb 15 mountain peaks in the country and they expect another half dozen more teams to come later in the season.

There are five teams from Japan, four from Germany, three from Austria, two each from Australia, Korea, United Kingdom and United States.

The autumn mountaineering began September 1 and ends November 15 when winter weather will dump snow and stormy weather conditions make climbing almost impossible.

There were no applicants seeking to climb Mount Everest, which is the world’s highest peak. However, there are teams attempting Mount Manaslu and Dhaulagiri. Mountaineers prefer to scale taller peaks like Everest during spring.

People in the mountaineering business say the decline in the number of mountaineering teams follows the June 1 Royal Palace massacre that left 10 members of the Royal Family dead, including King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya.

The riots and unstable situation that followed the massacre have discouraged many mountaineers prompting them to postpone their climbs.

The threats of the Maoist insurgency have also kept many visitors away.

NSP to continue protest programmes

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KATHMANDU, Sept 4 - The emergency meeting of the National Working Committee of Nepal Sadbhavana Party (NSP) held Tuesday has decided to give continuity to the ongoing protest programmes both in the street and in the House.

According to Muktinath Mandal, party spokesperson, the meeting decided to continue the protest demanding the ceiling not only in the land but also in the property.

"The meeting has also demanded with the government to immediately make public the white paper of lands distributed to different people in the name of landless since after the Land Reforms Act 2021 was enacted in 1964," said Mandal. "The government should also give details of the lands acquired by deforestation and the source to whom it was given."

The meeting also decided to form an all-party investigation committee to probe into the property of the persons holding public positions and seize their property whose source cannot be traced out, Mandal said.

The party, which has been raising voice to solve the problem of citizenship, has once again demanded to table a Bill in the parliament to reform the Constitution to permanently solve the long-standing citizenship problem, Mandal added. NSP along with Rastriya Prajatantra Party has been disrupting the regular House business demanding ceiling on property.

UMN ceases to support Gorkha Mission Hospital

By Tashi Dolma Thinley

KATHMANDU, Sept 4 - The United Mission to Nepal (UMN) is withdrawing from the Ampipal Hospital, also known as Gorkha Mission Hospital, citing various problems in the last couple of years.

The UMN had actually decided to close down the hospital but the local people have requested the former to handover the hospital to them.

The 50-bed hospital, established in 1969 by the UMN in Gorkha district, is being handed over to the local community today. But the locals are still unsure how they are going to run the hospital.

According to sources at the UMN, they decided to close the hospital due to the problems they have faced in the last two to three years. "It is mainly due to the lack of doctors that we are closing this hospital, " said Sanu Raja Ranjit, Deputy Director of UMN Health Services Department.

The hospital has four foreign doctors, one of them as director, and these doctors’ entire contract is to expire only in 2002. And the UMN sources say that they have failed to get volunteer doctors from abroad and could not even hire Nepalese doctors to replace them. Apart from the lack of doctors, they claim that they have no enough funds to renovate and run the 32-year-old hospital. But when they announced the closure of the hospital, the local people requested to let them take over the hospital.

"We are thus facilitating the community by handing over the hospital to them," said David Weakliam, director of the UMN’s Health Services Department. But the question as to how the community is going to run the hospital is still unclear.

Now that the locals have decided to take over the management of the hospital, these people are knocking at the government’s door for help. A delegation of the local people is presently in the capital to meet the government officials. Chetman Shrestha, Chairman of Gorkha District Development Committee, is leading the delegation to discuss this matter with the Ministry of Health. "We are not sure as to why they have decided to close the hospital after so many years of service," says Shrestha.

According to Shrestha, the Gorkha Mission Hospital has been one of the most important infrastructures for not only in Gorkha district alone but also for the thousands of people from the surrounding districts and far-flung villages which depend on the services of this hospital. "The hospital being a sensitive institution is not like an NGO or a travel agent to close down," says Arjun Bahadur Singh of the Ministry of Health.

Singh also accused the UMN of breaching the contract as the UMN had to inform the Ministry of Health or the Department of Health six months prior to the closing of the hospital. "It is a serious breach of contract because the other party (government) cannot take over the hospital, replace doctors, technicians and employ many others in a day’s notice," he said.

So, the government has requested the UMN to continue their services for a few months till the government plans its take over. Despite this logic behind the closure of this hospital, the locals and the government officials believe that this sudden decision to close the hospital has come due to the Maoists’ threat. "The UMN didn’t tell me this but I feel since it is a Christian missionary hospital, the Maoist seemed to have threatened them to close down," says, Chetman Shrestha, the Gorkha DDC chairman.

NBL officials lambast NRB

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KATHMANDU, Sept 4 - Officials of the Nepal Bank Limited (NBL) today blamed their predecessor and the indifference by the Nepal Rastriya Bank (NRB), the central bank, for the deteriorating state of the nation’s oldest commercial bank.

NRB Governor Tilak Rawal, however, claimed that if the international banking norms were to be strictly followed, then NBL and the Rastriya Banijya Bank (RBB) would have to be completely shut down.

Both NBL and RBB, the two oldest and prominent commercial banks, have been the targets of criticism for billions of rupees in unrecoverable loans and deteriorating financial conditions.

Rawal and NBL officials were summoned by the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to discuss the claims made in an interim report being prepared by NRB on NBL and its financial conditions. In the report that is yet to be presented and made public, the condition of NBL is described to be sick.

"The report says the bank is sick and I stand by every word mentioned in the report, however, until the report is complete and presented officially there is not much we can do," Rawal said.

NBL officials admitted that the bank was once heading towards bankruptcy but reforms in the bank has led to improvement in the condition.

NBL Chairman Sambhu Sharan Kayastha said the bank has settled Rs 5 billion in loans and has already recovered Rs. 2.75 billion in cash and another Rs. 500 million in interest.

"During the years 2054/55, there were random approval of loans when there was only one person represented in the Board from outside and the remaining were government appointed. This was a `black period’ for the bank," said Lok Bhakta Rana, a Board member.

Rana said that the bank has declared lot of the loans sanctioned during that period unrecoverable and the Board even has the NRB Deputy Governor as a member.

"What was NRB with its representation doing to prevent all these," Rana said.

Last year, NBL had declared billions of rupees in bad loans. Figures released by NBL last year showed that out of its total investment 31.63 per cent of loans are in defaulted category, majority of which has been defaulted for years. Out of the total Rs. 22 billion disbursed the bank categories only 68.37 per cent as good or recoverable loan.

Bank officials and analysts point the finger to the poor monitoring system and corrupt bank officials, who approve loans without checking the credibility of the creditors and by inflating the value of collateral for hefty commissions.

Also last year, an investigation report by an international audit firm on the financial position of NBL had said the bank’s lending process, loan files and the loan portfolio itself were deeply flawed and the bank was technically insolvent. London-based KPMG Barnet said that by international standards, NBL suffers from serious, critical shortfalls in all key areas.

PAC will continue to review the report.

Government surplus fund brings relief to sports sector

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KATHMANDU, Sept 4 – The government put an end to the long-standing anxiety over the size of Nepali contingent for the upcoming 9th South Asian Federation (SAF) Games as it pledged Tuesday to bear all expenses for the country’s participation in the Games.

According to the National Sports Council (NSC), the Ministry of Finance will mete out Rs 22.8 million to finance a 220-member Nepali contingent for the Games, slated for October 6-15 in Pakistan capital Islamabad. The council, issuing a press release, said that it would bear any inadequate amount that arises from its development budget, which would be reimbursed later by the Ministry of Finance.

With speculations abound: there would be a drastic reduction in the surplus budget from the Ministry of Finance, the member-secretary of NSC, Binod Shankar Palikhe, who looked clearly under pressure told reporters that he would appeal to the Prime Minister unless the council receives less than the council’s demand.

"We’ve demanded Rs 39.8 million for Nepali team’s training and preparation for the Games," he said. "Anything less than that would jeopardise our entire programme. I’d have to request to the Prime Minister unless our demand is met."

The decision came at just about time to meet the SAF Games organiser’s deadline for making the "entry by name" of all participants. The cut-off date for the entry is September 5, one month ahead of the opening ceremony.

Meanwhile, Pakistan news agencies, citing the Technical Director of the SAF Games Secretariat, Col. (r) Yahya, reported that the Nepalese "entry by number" was received as late as a couple of days ago "due to some bottlenecks in the mail delivery" instead of the July 20 deadline.

According to the agency reports, a total of 1,626 athletes and officials are expected from seven South Asian countries in what has been claimed as the biggest-ever edition of the South Asian Federation of sports (SAF) Games.

The competitions will be held in 15 disciplines with rivals Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka fighting for each and every event in the 10-day sports extravaganza. Nepal and Bangladesh will compete in every discipline except rowing.

According to the reports received here, Pakistan’s contingent may stretch to 396 — the biggest in the Games with the contingent India likely to be represented by strengths of 380. The Sri Lankans will field a contingent of 326 while Bangladesh contingent will include 273 players and officials.

The tiny states of Maldives and Bhutan will have contingents of 70 and 56 respectively. The two countries opted not to contest in almost half of the 15 disciplines. According to rules, each participating country was eligible to enter team officials in each event by 33 percent of the strength of players in that particular event.

Up to 167 gold medals, as many silver and 194 bronze medals will be up for grabs in the Games.