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An attempt of self-defence, all right. But did Royal Nepal Airline Corporation’s (RNAC) white paper on Lauda Air deal offer a convincing explanation?
Not to talk about the nitty-gritty of the document, sample the logic it chose to present on the top: RNAC does not have a specific rule to lease in aircraft.
True. None of its laws and by-laws spell how should the national airline hire an aircraft. And, believe it, that is how the state-run airline has been running for more than 40 years now. Interestingly, it is the same corporation that has been leasing in aircraft, one after another, to press in its international routes in the last one decade.
Not one, not two but there have been 19 deals RNAC has signed to lease in aircraft in the last one decade. And all that became possible without a rule. And so, every time when something went wrong with the deal, its politically appointed managers had the same excuse: There is no rule to lease in an aircraft for RNAC.
And so did the white paper on Lauda Air. Now comes the million-dollar question: Is that the logical end to treat the national flag carrier that has been in shambles for quite some time now?
Going by RNAC’s 19 aircraft-leasing deals in the past, each one took its predecessor — that claimed to have leased aircraft through personal negotiations due to lack of a rule — as its precedent.
"RNAC leased in the Lauda Air the way it had leased 18 aircraft in the past," claims the white paper on Lauda Air deal. The national flag carrier issued the document last month as the opposition parties in the Parliament continued to demand Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala’s resignation accusing him involved in the scam.
The Lauda deal-defending paper reached the public only after former RNAC boss Hari Bhakta Shrestha — who had clinched the deal with Lauda Air — was suspended and former Tourism Minister Tarinee Datta Chataut resigned as he was being interrogated by the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority.
Justifying the Lauda deal pointing at the way "18 aircraft-leasing transactions had been done in the past" was nothing new. Forget about other "normal" deals. Even the responsible ones in the Chase Air scam in 1998 had resorted to the same lame excuse — there is no law and that all the past leases had been done on the basis of personal negotiation.
Yam Lal Kandel, former Tourism Minister of the then coalition-government’s partner Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist-Leninist) had clung on the same "no rule and previous precedents" mantra when the infamous Chase Air scam rocked the national airline some three years ago.
A little known Chase Air Company pocketed the advance payment of around 800,000 US Dollars from RNAC but did not supply it the aircraft in return.
When the truth came out that Chase Air did not even have a single aircraft, the then RNAC boss Hong Kong Rana simply said that his office had okayed the deal because "that was the way all previous deals were done."
Three years down the line, those responsible for the Lauda Air deal are speaking the verbatim language the Chase Air culprits had. It’s, of course, different that the Lauda Aircraft did land at the Tribhuvan International Airport — unlike what happened in the Chase Air scandal.
But given the reverberations of the Lauda Air deal in the national politics, the impact of the deal has far exceeded than that of the Chase Air. Besides oppositions’ political ploys, if any, the deal has badgered the Prime Minister up to his official chair and has stalled the House of Representatives for almost one month now.
So much for a nation just because its national flag carrier does not have a rule to lease an aircraft? If so, should the political parties, that one after another sent their political appointees to steer the national airline, take the blame for the mess at RNAC — that flies in around 40 percent of the inbound tourists?
It is the same political parties that have their leaders and activists as people’s representatives in the Parliament — entrusted to make laws. While, the national airline’s Act still has to get going without a provision to lease an aircraft.
Will there ever be an end to this farce show that has paved way for politicians to take RNAC for a ride? This is not something the Lauda Air white paper answers, at least.
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