E-Kantipur

KATHMANDU, OCT 08 - Without caring to have a Cabinet clearance and without maintaining the state’s decorum and protocol, Vice President, Paramananda Jha, along with 17 lawmakers, began his controversial trip to South Korea on Thursday.

Jha and the lawmakers have been invited by a controversial INGO, whose invitation was recently turned down by President Dr Ram Baran Yadav.

Foreign Ministry mandarins came to know of the trip only on Thursday morning, while they say the travel breaches state protocol and decorum. Officials, who had gone to bid farewell to Jha at the airport, were shell shocked to see a caravan of lawmakers, assembled at the VIP room at the Tribhuvan International Airport.

“We do not have any information on the visit of the lawmakers. It is a direct breach of state protocol and decorum,” said a senior Foreign Ministry official.

Twenty-one persons, including VP Jha, Mr and Mrs Nilamber Acharya, Chairman of the Constitutional Committee, former foreign minister and lawmaker Prakash Chandra Lohani and Eak Nath Dhakal are among the lawmakers who will be attending a programme organised by the Universal Peace Foundation (UPF) and its patron Sun Myung Moon.

Given the controversy surrounding the UPF and its patron, President Yadav had rejected an invitation to be the chief guest of a peace rally in Kathmandu recently. The president’s office said the organisers had “wrongly” hoisted the national flag and used innocent children in the rally.

Jha will be attending a five-day religious programme in S. Korea.

After the Cabinet refused to allow him to travel and refused to bear the expenses, the Vice President’s Office made a separate request to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday, seeking a visa note through the S. Korean embassy.

“We were stunned by the sudden request. As a VVIP of the state, neither his itinerary was cleared by the Cabinet nor does a person of his stature attending such a programme holds meaning,” an official said.“A person like a vice-president of a country attending such programmes organised by INGOs is shameful; this shows how crazy our leaders are about travelling abroad,” the official said.

Jha is planning to make a friendly trip to China on the third week of Oct. The five-day international programme “International, Interfaith Assembly” is sponsored by the UPF.

Posted on: 2010-10-08 09:05

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