The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) on Thursday filed a corruption case at the Special Court against 16 individuals, including former Minister for Information and Communications and current Member of the House of Representatives, Mohan Bahadur Basnet.
The case involves alleged irregularities in the procurement of the Telecommunications Traffic Monitoring and Fraud Control System (TERAMOX). The CIAA has demanded the recovery of Rs 3.22 billion from each of the defendants, accusing them of causing financial losses to the Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA).
Following the filing of the case, Basnet has been automatically suspended from his parliamentary position in accordance with the Corruption Control Act. Speaker Devraj Ghimire read out the letter of suspension during Thursday’s House of Representatives meeting.
According to the CIAA, Basnet misused his authority by incorporating an additional program into the TERAMOX procurement process—one not proposed by the NTA—thereby bypassing cost estimation and the procurement master plan.
Other individuals named in the case include former NTA Chairpersons Digambhar Jha and Purushottam Khanal; former NTA members Dhanaraj Gyawali and Tika Prasad Upreti; NTA Directors Bijay Kumar Raya, Surendra Lal Hada, and Dipesh Acharya; and Deputy Directors Rewoti Ram Pantha, Suresh Basnet, Hiranya Prasad Bastakoti, Achutananda Mishra, and Sandip Adhikari.
Also charged are Jamal Anouti, CEO of Vanrise Solutions SAL (Offshore), the consulting company involved in the procurement, and Dilip Kumar Gurung and Tej Prasad Kharel, Chairperson and Director of local agent Connection Trade Link Pvt. Ltd., respectively.
The CIAA has accused all 16 defendants of embezzlement and abuse of authority in the controversial TERAMOX purchase. -- RSS
