CIAA arrests four top NOC officials

Kathmandu, Sep 25 – The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority today arrested four top officials of the Nepal Oil Corporation on the charge of misappropriating funds.
 

Those arrested are NOC Acting Executive Director Suresh Kumar Agrawal, Director of Finance Department Nagendra Sah and managers Netra Prasad Kafle and Kamal Prasad Sharma.
 

The anti-graft body has charged the officials with illegally paying bonus amounting to Rs 25.3 million for the fiscal year 2008 to employees in 2012. “They have been arrested for misusing funds by distributing bonus to officials when the NOC itself is facing loss every year,” CIAA Chief Lokman Singh Karki’s press coordinator Bhawani Subedi told THT. According to Subedi, the anti-graft body has gathered sufficient evidence to justify the charges that the officials in question had misused funds in the name of disbursing bonus.
 

“Chances that they would destroy the proof were high so they have been taken into custody,” Subedi said, adding that they have been detained at different locations to avert the quartet’s bid to hatch conspiracy to wriggle out of CIAA action.
 

The CIAA has maintained that the NOC bonus distribution was against Bonus Act, 1974, and that a corporation in loss does not have the right to disburse bonus to its staff. Even if bonus has to be given to the staff, it should be paid within eight months of the closure of the fiscal year, the CIAA held. “The NOC distributed bonus four years later which is not justified,” states a press release issued by CIAA Spokesman Shreedhar Sapkota. “The anti-graft body had directed the NOC not to distribute bonus in 2009.”

The state oil monopoly has been incurring losses up to one billion rupees every month.
 

Section 9 (3) of the Bonus Act states: If an application specifying reasons of not being able to distribute the bonus within stipulated the period is submitted to the Labour Office by any management, the Labour Office may, if the reasons are found genuine, extend the time for a period of three months at maximum for distribution of bonus, or may allow to distribute the bonuses of two years at some point of time in the next fiscal year.

In the line of fire

• Suresh Kumar Agrawal, Acting Executive Director

• Nagendra Sah, Director of Finance Department

• Netra Prasad Kafle, Manager

• Kamal Prasad Sharma, Manager

The Himalayan Times