PAC smells rat in yet another leasing of Boeing

BY A STAFF REPORTER

Kathmandu, Mar. 16: Misfortunes never come alone. If a recent report is any indication to go by, more misfortunes seem to be in the offing for the beleaguered Royal Nepal Airlines Corporation (RNAC), the national flag bearer, which has, of late, suffered many setbacks.

After reeling under the allegation of financial irregularities and abuse of authority while leasing the Lauda Air aircraft, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has smelt yet another financial misappropriation by the nation’s flag career while leasing the wide-bodied Boeing-757 from China Southwest Airlines some few months back.

The Parliamentary sub-committee formed under the convenorship of Buddi Man Tamang, a Rastriya Prajatantra Party lawmaker and one of the members of the PAC, the parliamentary body responsible to look after the financial dealings of government and other public bodies, presented its study report regarding the leasing of the CSWA plane to the PAC today.

The report states that the leasing of CSWA plane was full of malafide intentions and were against the interest of the RNAC. The sub-committee includes MPs Rajendra Prasad Pandey and Pari Thapa as other members.

The report has also asked the government to take stern action against those who are involved in the "loss-making deal."

However, the meeting PAC that was headed by Committee chairman Subhash Chandra Nembang this afternoon in connection with the presentation of the report, has not yet decided to spell out the final verdict over the RNAC deal with Chinese airlines company.

The PAC chairman Nembang said that the Parliamentary committee would come into the final conclusion only after all the members have thoroughly gone through the 26-page report.

Since 1994, the RNAC has been operating many of its international flights by leasing the wide-bodied planes from CSWA. During its 7-year-long history of operating leased planes, the RNAC has struck deal with the CSWA for nine times out of the total 22 lease deals.

The sub-committee report has said that there was no linear co-relationship among the directives given by the Council of Ministers and the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation while leasing the recent CSWA plane.

The other points the sub-committee raised against RNAC are: under utilization of the seats, making hasty decision while leasing the CSWA plane and the RNAC’s failure to maintain profit and loss account regarding the capacity of the leased CSWA plane.

The sub-committee report has also pointed an accusing finger towards the repeated act of leasing of the planes without going through global tender bid. The RNAC, for years, has been saying that it lacks clear legal provisions for the process of leasing.

Similarly, in today’s meeting RPP MP Dr. Prakash Chandra Lohani asked the PAC to discuss also the recent mobile phone scamp and the cabinet decision regarding the renewal of the license applied by Space-time Network for satellite transmission.

But when other MPs said that it was too early to enter into the mobile phone scamp and renewal of the license of Space-time Network since there were much things to be explored.

The next meeting of the Committee is scheduled to be held on March 19.

Dhulikhel – Bhakunde Besi road opened

BY A STAFF REPORTER

Kathmandu, Mar. 16: Minister of Physical Planning and Works Mahantha Thakur and Ambassador of Japan to Nepal Mitsuaki Kojima jointly opened a segment of the Sindhuli Road Project for road traffic in Dhulikhel today. This segment, part of the Project’s Section IV (Dhulikhel - Nepalthok), extends from Dhulikhel to Bhakunde Besi.

Minister of state for Physical Planning and Works Suresh Malla, high-ranking officers from different ministries, other concerned government officers and related personnel of the Project, JICA experts and other Japanese personnel assigned to the Project, and officials from the Embassy of Japan and JICA were also present at the opening ceremony.

Japanese ambassador to Nepal Mitsuaki Kojima expressed his sincere appreciation to all those involved in the project for their tireless efforts in completing this segment, and also congratulated them on their successful works. Furthermore, the Kojima also congratulated the people in the villages alongside this segment for a better road access to Dhulikhel and Kathmandu.

Prior to the implementation of the Sindhuli Road Project, there was only one gateway out of the Capital City to the East-West Highway and the rest of the country. Due to this, there has been an urgent need for a reliable alternative trunk road which directly connected the Capital City with the Terai plains. It is expected that the road system will greatly benefit the people in the area to facilitate their daily life.

Of the four Section, Section I —the 37 km section from Bardibas to Sindhuli Bazaar — has already been completed and was opened for vehicular traffic in 1997. Section IV of the Project extends from Nepalthok to Dhulikhel, and an important segment of that Section — from Bhakunde Besi to Dhulikhel — is opened for road traffic from today.

Until now, the people living in this area have been facing difficulties in maintaining convenient, stable life due to the lack of road access. Now, people residing in the remote areas adjoining this segment have easy access to markets. As a result, they will enjoy economic as well as many other benefits from this accessibility.

Hotels back to business, as unionists prepare to move court

BY A STAFF REPORTER

Kathmandu, Mar.16: Hotels across the Kingdom returned to normal business today as the government’s yesterday’s decision to ban strikes in hotels left their workers with no choice but to resume their duties from this morning while their union leaders were preparing to reach the court challenging the official move.

"We have all the services open now," said a manager at Hotel Soaltee Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza. "With all the workers back to duty, we are in a position to offer all our facilities to our guests."

Nagmeet Nagpal, Acting General Manager at Hotel Yak and Yeti said all the workers had resumed their duties and that the hotel was in operation in full swing. "The hotel is back to normal business now."

The service charge demanding hotel workers had staged a shutdown strike yesterday when the government included hotel services in the Essential Services Act 1958 thus banning strikes in hotels and restaurants. "The government, using the right of the Essential Service Act 1958, has included tourism accommodations, motels, hotels, restaurants, and resorts, in the list of essential services thus banning strikes in these institutions."

With hotel and restaurant service as its fresh entrant, the Essential Service Act now has ten services grouped as essential services not allowing strikes.

While the law sent hotel workers back to work, their union leaders were busy doing home-works to knock the court’s door. "This is to challenge the government’s decision to ban our strikes," said Bishnu Lamsal, Secretary at the Joint Central Action Committee of the two hotel unions. "There had been similar situations in Ecuador and India when the government banned strikes in hotels but later the unionists won their rights to stage strikes with the help of the court."

Lamsal said that hotel employees would be continuing their protest programmes –- other than shutdown strikes – as long as their service charge demand remains unmet.

A press statement of the JCAL said that the government’s move to ban strike is against the trade union’s movement. "The court is the only possible way that can help us face the undemocratic decision."

The government had to intervene in the service charge row yesterday after the hotels had no workers to serve their clients. Executives in the hotels had worked to provide their guests the minimum facilities.

In its previous attempt to settle the service charge row between hoteliers and their employees’ unions, the government had formed a high-level committee to look into the service charge issue.

The high level body had recommended that the government should not go for mandatory service charge. The high level committee’s report had suggested that the government should ultimately go for fixed wage system.

Hoteliers had welcomed the idea while unionists rejected the suggestions and declared their protest programs to be finally followed by shutdown strikes from March 15 yesterday.

While hotel unionists have been adamant on compulsory tipping system, hoteliers have denied to meet the demand maintaining that the tourism packages in the country are already expensive and that the tourist arrival is very poor.

Meantime, the ILO Office in Kathmandu issued a statement today encouraging the trade unions and employers to engage in healthy and constructive social dialogue and negotiation to overcome the present crisis in the hotel and tourism sector.

"This would fortify consensus seeking on an issue of social and economic concern to the country, in the spirit of the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, which has been adopted by the ILO tripartite constituents in Nepal, namely, the government and employers and workers organizations," said the statement issued by Leyla Tegmo-Reddy, Director of the ILO Office here.

Sewerage management
Bhaktapur facing severe problem

BY UJJWAL PRAJAPATI

Bhaktapur, Mar. 16: Bhaktapur, with all its historical importance, may look very clean with no garbage strewn around on its streets, but the town is facing severe problem in managing sewerage and waste-water, which are directly drained into the river.

The entrances into the town are actually nauseating with the streams stinking with polluted water. Although treatment ponds have been constructed for dirty water, but they are not working.

The Bhaktapur Municipality has asked to hand over the drainage management system to them saying they would manage it. The municipality is waiting for the decision of the Council of Ministers.

Mayor of the Municipality, Prem Suwal complains that the handing over the drainage management system has been delayed. The Mayor also said that Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala had said that the management of the drainage system would be handed over to the municipality while inaugurating the 5th Town Council meeting of Bhaktapur in November last year.

He says for the proper management of the drainage system either it should be handed over to the municipality or the government should take it under its control and carry out the work properly.

Earlier the drainage management was given on contract. Suwal blamed the contractors for the bad management of the drainage. Presently, the Drainage Management System is under the control of the government and the office also collects drainage charge, which is 50 per cent of the drinking water bill. He also said that the related ministry should take effective measures.

The existing drainage system in Bhaktapur was made by the Germans when they were refurbishing the whole Bhaktapur town. Under the system, sewer of each house was linked to the drainage system and through it to the two treatment ponds at Hanuman Ghat and Sallaghari. Sewer pipes were also built on the bank of the river to take waste-water to the treatment pond.

At present the municipality has been using two trucks and dozers to clear the river-sides and make it free from weeds and soils, the mayor said.

The treatment area at Sallaghari has a capacity of treating two million litres of drain water daily. It covers an area of 62 ropanies with five treatment ponds. After the waste-water is treated in the treatment ponds it is discharged into the Khosang river

Two pumps have been installed to take water from the drain to the treatment ponds. But the pumps do not work and as a result water from the drain directly mix into the river. The treatment ponds are lying idle because the waste-water can not reach there. Presently, four treatment ponds are filled with dry decayed leaves.

The other treatment plant is at Hanuman Ghat, on the eastern side of Bhaktapur. It has a capacity of treating half a million litres of water every day. It covers an area of seven ropanies and has only one treatment pond. The pond is designed to take drain water by natural flow.

Manager of the Sewerage Department, Gyanesh Nand Bajracharya said that the drainage system was not working properly even at the time when they were completed.

"There are also cases of the local people blocking the drain and diverting it to irrigate their land due to which the water could not reach the treatment pond," Bajracharya told The Rising Nepal. The result is, during rainy season, water from the drain and sewers flood out making the streets a mud pool.

Bajracharya says the fault also lies with the local people, who use drainwater for irrigation. But local people deny it. One Krishna Shrestha of Bolachhe said they only use water from the river for irrigation and do not block the drain to divert the water to the field.

Meanwhile, Bajracharya said the Drinking Water Supply office has already made preparations to hand over the management of the drainage system to the Municipality. Because of this, he said, they are not paying much attention to the drainage system of the town.

Presently the compressor filter of the treatment pond at Sallaghari is out of order and water fills the pond only during the rainy season, said Khil Bahadur Karki, supervisor at the branch office of Drainage at Sallaghari. He also accused the people living in Byasi area of the municipality of using water from the drain for irrigation by blocking the pipes.

Karki said the people do not have access to the river and there is no other means to irrigate their land so they block the drain to use its water.

The Municipality is now looking forward to taking over the management of the drainage and Mayor Suwal is confident that he can efficiently do it.

Top priority to poverty reduction

BY A STAFF REPORTER

Kathmandu, Mar. 16: In view of launching more effective poverty reduction activities in the 10th Plan, the National Planning Commission (NPC) has started to prepare a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP).

Delivering his keynote speech at a Consultative Workshop on Government’s Poverty Reduction Strategy, member of NPC Dr. Shankar Sharma today said that the government would give top priority to poverty reduction programme during the 10th Plan.

Dr. Sharma further said that the draft policy document of the 10th Plan has included provisions for taking action against those employees who fail to successfully carry on their responsibilities.

Tanka Rai, Chairman of the Development Committee of the House of Representatives, said that agriculture, water resources and tourism sectors need to be given priority and plans and programmes have to be devised accordingly.

Krishna Prasad Sapkota, Chairman of ADDCN, said that despite many challenges, concerted efforts could help achieve the goal of poverty reduction.

Sapkota also said that the government has to focus on the information technology (IT) and forest conservation for providing employment opportunities to more people.

The consultative workshop was jointly organised by NPC and Association of District Development Committees of Nepal (ADDCN) to take inputs and suggestions from intellectuals, academicians, development practitioners, social workers, local government leaders for addressing the poverty reduction issues in a more effective manner.

Dr. Jagadish Chandra Pokhrel, another member of NPC, said that valuable outputs had come from the workshop and they would be useful for addressing the poverty reduction issues.

On the occasion, Dr. Bharat Dhital, Rishi Raj Lumsali, Vice-Chairman of ADDCN, MP Tirtha Gautam, among others, also expressed their views.

A thematic group discussion was also held to discuss on five key issues that include infrastructure development, social development, decentralization, private sector participation and agriculture and rural infrastructure.

According to the organisers, around 175 participants from different walks of life took part in the workshop. It was participated in by lawmakers, DDC chairmen, mayors, VDC chairmen, members of NPC, representatives from donor agencies and government officials.

Fire breaks out in two major city centres

BY BHIM ARYAL, KEDAR BHATTARAI

Kathmandu, Mar.16: Major incidents of fire occurred at two separate business hubs of the capital city late tonight with preliminary estimates of damage running into millions of rupees.

A main shopping arcade near the historic Basantapur Durbar Square caught fire while fire brigades were fighting to put out a blaze elsewhere at the tourist centre of Thamel.

It took two hours to fight the fire that broke out at the Sherpa Outdoor Goods Industries of Thamel around nine this evening.

Sirens were being heard till an hour after midnight tonight as fire brigades, brought from as far away as Bhaktapur and Lalitpur, fought to bring the fire that gutted Suraj Arcade into control.

A number of policemen were in the scene as panicked shop owners and locals crowded the streets at Makhan tole, just a few blocks from city centres of New Road and Indra Chowk.

The crowd assembled around the blazing Suraj Arcade broke into a nearby house for water as the fire brigade initially attempting to contain the blaze ran out of water.

The president of Suraj Arcade told the Gorkhapatra daily that the fire could have been caused by electric short circuit.

The police were not in a position to say what caused the fire at the two places and how much of damage it had done.