CIAA detains Sirohiya on charge of illegal benefits

By A Staff Reporter

KATHMANDU, Dec. 23: The Commission for Investigation of the Abuse of Authority (CIAA) today detained Kailash Sirohiya, Director of Kantipur Terrestrial Television Network Private Ltd., for illegally reaping the benefits by taking back the security bond worth Rs. 25 million instead of extending the tenure of the bond.

Sirohiya was arrested in connection with the awarding of the licence for the terrestrial television network by former Minister for Information and Communications Jaya Prakash Prasad Gupta.
Gupta has been in judicial custody since October 30 for abusing his authority while awarding the contract for the television network and while distributing licences for mobile telephones.
The Special Court had on Friday asked the CIAA to submit a charge sheet against Gupta after the commission sought more time to prepare its case.

Today CIAA officials took Sirohiya to court just a few minutes before the court closed at four in the afternoon. Earlier Sirohiya was under normal bail. Gupta was also brought to the court when the clock struck four in the afternoon.

The court instructed the CIAA to present them before the court on Tuesday due to lack of time. Earlier, the CIAA had inquired with Sirohya how he got the license for the television network.
According to a press statement issued by the CIAA, the commission today filed a charge sheet against Gupta, the then acting Secretary Prabhakar Adhikari, the then Divisional Engineer Shohan Bahadur Nyachhun, and technical officer Anup Nepal. The CIAA claims they were involved in corruption and misusing their authority while awarding the licence to Kantipur Television Network and in returning the security bond to the company.

The CIAA, under section 8(3) of the Anti-Corruption Act 2059 has demanded a two-year imprisonment and a fine of Rs.25 million for them. As then Minister Gupta was a member of the council of ministers, and then Acting Secretary Prabhakar Adhikari a special class gazetted officer of His Majesty's Government, the commission has demanded an additional three-year term as per Section 24 of the Anti-Corruption Act, the statement reads.

The CIAA has also filed a charge sheet against Sirohiya accusing him of illegally taking back the security bond worth Rs 25 million instead of extending the tenure of the deposit. The commission has also asked the court to recoup the amount from the network.

As the court has asked the Commission to present them on Tuesday, Gupta and Sirohiya were taken into judicial custody. They were seen driven away in the same vehicle. Before being whisked away, Sirohiya said he took his arrest as an attack on professional journalism.

Gupta said that he did not know anything about the charge sheet submitted at the court today. Gupta said the charges against him were mal-intentioned and that he had committed no wrong while doling out the license. Likewise, a three-member bench of the Special Court continued its hearing on the charge sheet filed against former Minister Chiranjibi Wagle. CIAA prosecutor Yuba Raj Subedi pleaded with the court to allow it to detain Wagle, considering the seriousness of the case and in the larger interest of the people.

Advocates Shree Hari Aryal and Mahadev Prasad Yadav, pleading on behalf of Wagle, asked the court to release him without bail, as there was no possibility of destruction of evidences connected to the investigation.

Experts stress closer Sino-SAARC ties

By Narayan Upadhyay

KATHMANDU, Dec. 23: The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) must resolve its inherent problems as well as problems with China to establish a productive, economic and social relationship with China.

Most foreign affairs experts, intellectuals, academicians and politicians of South Asia, including Nepal, and China, who attended a seminar on SAARC and China today, believed that the SAARC member nations could benefit from China's rapid economic growth only if special emphasis is given to smoothen the functioning of the SAARC and speed up its economic growth rate.

Various paper presenters at the seminar were of the view that cautious, thorough preparations and extensive consultations with all those concerned are essentials to establishing a sound Sino-SAARC relationship. Building confidence and lessening tension among the nations of the Indian sub-continent and with China are the prerequisite of making such a relationship fruitful.

The seminar was organised by the China Study Center and was inaugurated by Speaker of the House of Representatives Taranath Ranabhat. China and South Asia share a long geographical border and commonalties in civilisational continuity, whether they be in the fields of art, history, music or literature. Both have huge populations (China and South Asia each have about 1.3 billion people), vast areas and strategic locations. South Asia, meanwhile, has a five per cent cumulative growth rate while China has enjoyed 3 to 10 per cent growth in the last decade. The Himalaya has provided linkages, most of the paper presenters at the seminar wrote in their papers.

"Time has come to create a very productive linkage and to determine the fundamentals of such linkages and create a new set of mutually beneficial relations based on the promotion of economic cooperation, trade and investment. These should guide both SAARC and China in the 21st Century."
But obstruction to South Asia's meaningful productive relations with China, for most of the paper presenters at the seminar, lies in the fact that SAARC has been marred by the slow paced cooperation among its member states.

"The basic problem in establishing necessary Sino-SAARC relations is the inability to reach a consensus among the SAARC countries to establish such a relation," Ma Jialli, Research Professor at China's Institute of Contemporary Relations, Beijing and one of the paper presenters, wrote in his paper. "When some bilateral relations remain tense, certain SAARC members are suspicious of close ties with China."

In a situation like this, there is always a doubt that decisions to establish relations with China will not reach unanimity. Also, SAARC cannot come to a decision if any member state objects to such a decision, Professor Ma said. The poor communication between the SAARC and China is also coming in the way of having good and productive relations between both the sides.

"Not all the potentials have been transformed into practical achievements. Current internal cooperation has not yet reached the proper level. Slow growth of trade among the SAARC member states and heavy burden of foreign loans make trade balance of the region lopsided," Professor Ma said.
Both China and some of the South Asian nations must resolve the contentious border issues. China and India have already fought a war. The issue has yet not been resolved. Ironically, India and Pakistan too have fought three wars. Relations between the two nations have always remained tense over the border issue.

Having spoken about all the existing problems within the SAARC and Sino-SAARC relations, there are ways how both China and South Asia can benefit by establishing good relations. Both China and SAARC, suffering at present from not having overland communications or direct shipping links, can gain appreciably through the Greater Mekong River Sub-regional project, while the proposed Asian Highway and the trans Asian Railway could consolidate the relationship further.

Closer links with China, wrote former SAARC secretary-general Abul Ahsan, can be formed through an institutional framework. SAARC can learn from the ASEAN- China model, or China's relation as a dialogue partner with the ASEAN nations. Until recently, most ASEAN members had serious differences with China on vital political and security matters.

Nowadays, an annual summit between them is a regular affair. The Framework Agreement on Economic Cooperation and the country's decision to join ASEAN Free Trade in the next 10 years are some of the significant steps that have brought both sides closer.

'Govt holds constitutional power'

RSS

KATHMANDU, Dec. 23: Members of the National Assembly government assurances committee put various questions to Prime Minister Lokenra Bahadur Chand at a meeting of the committee today.
The questions concerned whether or not the cabinet had executive powers, the amendment to the work execution regulations, the opinion of the Deputy Prime Minister on providing citizenship to four million people, the inactivity of the decentralisation follow-up and monitoring committee, resolution of the Maoist problem, the previous government's viewpoint regarding the Maoists, elections to the House of Representatives and local bodies, and the refusal of the Indian government to allow passage through its airspace for arms imported by Nepal.

The questions also concerned reduction by order of the legal powers of local bodies to tax, the problems caused to people by the absence of incumbent secretaries at local VDCs and the contradictory utterances of various ministers.

Regarding executive powers, Prime Minister Chand said as the Constitution provides that these powers inhere in His Majesty and the cabinet, such powers reside with the cabinet following the formation of the latter.

He said that in amending the work execution regulations the main spirit of l990 has not been compromised and with regard to issuing citizenship, the idea was to do so smoothly in accordance with the prevailing law.

He said the decentralisation follow-up and monitoring committee was active and would remain so.
The Prime Minister said although no formal proposal has been forthcoming from the Maoist side on the resolution of that problem, HMG was effortful in that direction, NGOs were also making informal efforts as facilitators, but no concrete and notable stride had been made so far.

He did not say anything about the previous government's viewpoint regarding the Maoists. About elections to the House of Representatives and local bodies, he said the government's thinking was to call an all party meeting to inform it about the state of peace and security on the ground and to hold elections in a phased manner with the consensus of all the parties. About the arms imported from Belgium, he said it was the responsibility of the arms company to bring the arms to Kathmandu.
He said the legal right of local bodies to raise taxes cannot be constrained by any order and if such had in fact taken place the government was ready to rectify things.

About the appointment of VDC secretaries, he said the government was thinking of appointing local individuals on a temporary basis with the consent of the Public Service Commission. About the utterances of ministers in contravention of government policy, he said the ministers concerned had issued clarifications. At the end of the meeting, committee chairman Janardan Acharya suggested that elections be held as soon as possible. The committee also decided to invite the Minister for Tourism and Civil Avtiation to its meeting on December 27.

Biratnagar prepares to receive Their Majesties

By Our Correspondent

BIRATNAGAR, Dec. 23 : Preparation is in full swing for the grand civic reception to be accorded to Their Majesties the King and Queen by the people of the Eastern Development Region. The civic reception will be held on January 3 in Biratnagar, and Their Majesties will be arriving in the biggest city of the eastern region the same day. This will be Their Majesties' first visit to the Eastern Development Region after His Majesty's accession to the throne.

According to the HM Gyanendra-Komal Civic Honour and Welcome Committee, more than 8,000 people, from professional organisations to the common people, have been requesting to get their names included in the Committee. The Committee has been constituted under the chairmanship of member of the Raj Parishad Pandit Meghraj Sharma.

Initially, it was decided to form a main committee of 1,101 members, but this overwhelming response from the people has posed a difficulty, said Tilak Prasad Rijal, a member of the committee.
As part of the preparation, more than 150 gates will be built at different parts of the city, said Moti Dugad, coordinator of the city decoration committee. Besides, the city will get a facelift.

Millions make no difference to Hanuman Dhoka

By Schuman Sourav

KATHMANDU Dec. 23: In the past 16 months, Kathmandu Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) has collected Rs. 22 million in fees to enter the Hanuman Dhoka Durbar Square, a world heritage site.
The service charges were collected since August 2001 to generate revenue for the conservation of the Hanuman Dhoka Durbar Square that includes preservation and restoration of monuments and for tourism promotion. But no one is convinced this is actually happening.

Even Bikash Bhakta Shrestha, former chairman of Ward No. 25, where the big portion of the Hanumandhoka lies, says that a lot more could have been done with that money by now. "We are charging, but not providing adequate services. We must admit that the money has not been utilised as committed."

According to K.P. Kafle, internal auditor of the KMC, it collected Rs. 15 million from the five collection points in the last fiscal year (2001-2002), and another Rs. 7 million from mid-July to mid-December this year. The KMC collects a service charge of Rs. 25 from SAARC nationals and Rs. 200 from other tourists.

There is actually a tug-of-war going on between the public and the KMC as to how the money have been spent. Rajesh Prasad Shrestha of Durbar Square Cleaning Club rejects KMC's claims that the entry fees are being well spent.

"Repairing a few stairways of some temples does not mean that the levy collected has been well utilised," he says. "And I think they are exaggerating. It is their duty to keep the city clean. We the local people are also involved in the cleaning work." But, he said, the KMC cannot keep the place clean just by keeping six garbage boxes and by building two toilets.

Kusum Devkota, who has been running a bookstall on Jhochhen (Freak Street) for the past 15 years, sees the entry fees from another perspective. "I call it road charge. Charging fees to passers by is ridiculous," he says. "A pedestrian who wants to go to Jhochhen from Thamel, for instance, also must pay. There already is an additional charge of Rs. 250 to enter the Durbar Square Museum."

But most tourists don't have any qualms about paying the entry fees if things improve for the better.
Says Lafoux Harve, a French tourist who comes to Nepal annually and doesn't miss visiting the Hanuman Dhoka Durbar Square, "For us, Rs. 200 is nothing, we can even pay Rs. 1,000. But the money must be utilised properly to beautify the area and improve things…I don't see any changes taking place here."

One area where tour guides would like to see some improvement is in the behaviour of the security guards and the cash collectors. Tourists spend a lot of time just showing tickets to the security personnel who seem to be present all over the place. And due to the language problem, the cash collectors are unable to convey the tourists why they have to pay the service charge.

"It is not possible to hire staff who know all the languages, but all the staff at the cash counters have at least passed SLC and have good command of English," said the site in-charge. The management has 32 staff members, including cash collectors and security guards. People working at the cash counters have grievances of their own. They complain that the guides of certain travel agencies try to cheat them. Once paid, the entry fee is valid for the entire length of the visa period of a tourist. "Agents bring the tourists in groups and try to sneak them all in by buying just a few tickets," a girl at one of the counters said. "And there is no mechanism to check whether a ticket was bought or borrowed."