Most irregularities occur in federal affairs, education, land

Kathmandu, Nov. 15

Federal affairs, education and land administration have been the sectors with highest irregularities for the last several years.

Consecutive reports of the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) for the last several years have shown that these three sectors were at the top of the corruption log.

Of the total 22,625 complaints, including 8,200 transferred from previous year, registered at the CIAA last year, 32.72 per cent involved federal affairs, followed by 15.61 per cent in education and 9.09 per cent in land administration.

The Annual Report of FY 2020/21 was submitted to President Bidya Devi Bhandari by CIAA Chief Commissioner Prem Kumar Rai on Monday.

In the previous FY 2019/20, the CIAA had received total 25,152 complaints, of which 30.07 are related to federal affairs, 16.36 to education and 8.29 per cent to land administration.

Similarly, in the FY 2018/19, about 24,085 complaints were received by the authority. And the corruption index was the same with 26.87 per cent related to federal affairs, 16.95 per cent to education and 8.34 to land administration.

Other areas plagued by corruption are forest and environment, health, physical infrastructure and transport, home administration and water resources.

In the last fiscal, cases related to forest and environment registered at the CIAA made up 5.01 per cent of the total cases, health 3.93 per cent, physical infrastructure and transport 3.76 per cent, home administration 3.47 per cent and water resources 3.09.

According to the report, the anti-graft body had decided to file114 charge sheets at the Special Court last year. They include 70 cases of bribery, 20 of damage of public property, 12 of illegal benefits and three each of illegal income, forged educational certificates and other issues.

Similarly, in those cases, about Rs. 1.89 billion misappropriated amount is to be raised from the accused.

The CIAA has clared 14,532 complaints last year which make up 64.32 per cent of the total registred cases. Remaining 8,093 cases are transferred to the current fiscal.

It has made several recommendations to lessen the irregularities in verious sectors of administration and development.

 While the country's development is severely affected by the poor pulbic procurement practices, the anti-corruption body has recommened to ensure the resources, site clearance and environemnt impact assessment of the projects before calling for the bids.

It also suggested to make the officials of the respective agencies fully responsible for and accountable to the contract agreement and management, and control the wrong practices to limit competition in procurement process.

Likewise, it has suggested to manage the construction works implemented by the users committee by formulating a work procedure to form users committee and mobilise them.

"If any loss or damage incurred in a project due to the malice of consultants, they should be held responsible for the losses. There should be quality assurance plan for every project," read the report.

Accepting the report, President Bhandari said that all top government officials must exhibit high morale in their dealings. "Only punishing the corrupt people is not enough, there should be efforts to end corruption in all its forms. One and all should contribute in ending corruption and irregularities," she said. 

Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 16 November 2021.