RNAC= Real Nepal Abandoned Corporation

It could well be a funny story indeed but yet it does tell loud and clear that one who is a dishonest would remain corrupt in all possible rough and tough climatic conditions.

The joke has relevance in our own local context.

One junior level bureaucrat was a declared corrupt. His friends and boss alike knew about his corrupt practices but could not nab him as he was so clever that he never left any proof of his corrupt activities which could land him to the bars.

Finally, the departmental head devised a mechanism. The idea was to transfer him to a sea beach and order him to count the incoming ship in the dock.

The corrupt was taken aback. He was at a loss on how to continue his money spinning business.

Where there is will, there is a way. He got it.

The format he devised was that he began talking to the approaching Ship Captains to halt their machine for a while. The reasons he advanced were that he was for the moment busy in certain procedural technicalities. The incoming Ship Captain could calculate the loss of the revenue in being detained mid way in the sea. The Captains thus decided to "honor" with some financial transactions secretly. The idea worked and the corrupt person could amass wealth even in such a different climatic conditions. The joke ends here.

This is what has been happening in Nepal with the Royal Nepal Airlines Management. Every alternate days, one could listen that its International flights have either delayed by ten hours or at best scrapped. In the process, the Corporation is sliding financially by each passing days. The process has been continuing since long and will continue for long until some miracles happen.

Commission is the bug. Each and every staff at the RNAC, I am told, is a money-spinner. The men who directly are accountable to the flights of the Aircraft are the ones who enjoy the most. The men who procure machines or have the responsibility to send the Aircrafts for regular "checks" are considered to be Nepali versions of Bill Gates. Those who supply uniforms to the stewards/hostesses too are considered to be the lucky ones.

Interesting is the fact that the management dilly-dallies the talks which go in for having a new aircraft for the Corporation. This is bewildering indeed. Questions are being raised as to why the RNAC authorities hush-hush the matter that urges it to buy a new aircraft of its own?

The underlying fact is that it is better to bring the same under the "lease" arrangement for such an arrangement provides hefty "commission" that go in millions. Undoubtedly, the commission goes in the pockets of those who are in the forefront of the shady "deals".

The process goes on and on. Even the men who are in the Board of Directors do not know as to what has been happening inside the RNAC? They come to know when the media discloses the stories.

The government knows it but remains helpless in arresting such ugly trends going inside the RNAC. Sources close to RNAC say that since one of the government’s own cabinet minister is tied with the shady deals and hence no actions are taken to penalize the corrupt. Let’s recall the most infamous Lauda and China South Air deal and the likes of many which have yet to come to the surface.

Despite such Himalayan corrupt practices going inside the RNAC, fortunately, the rate of the accidents are the lowest.

Long time back, I had asked one French aviation expert about the reasons as to why Nepali planes, owned by the Corporation, have minimized the rate of the accidents?

The French expert said that the reasons were very uncomplicated.

According to him, the mishap do not occur as the moment RNAC’s aircrafts develop some minor problems, the management send the machine for a check and grab commission. This allows the aircraft to remain in condition.

The next reason the French expert told me was simply a hair-raising one.

"You the Nepalese consider machines as Goddess of Energy and arrange sacrifices on a regular basis", was what he said.

Nowhere in the world, machines are offered sacrifices, concluded the expert who appeared boggled looking at the Nepali phenomenon of minimizing the rates of the accidents.

No logic could explain it but in Nepal’s case is it a supernatural phenomenon that Goddess SHAKTI-a form of energy so to say, preferred sacrifices and in lieu shields the aircraft from any possible mishaps when in operation?

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