Corruption case in MDMS: Jha and Khanal's intention to escape by blaming the employees

The Authority filed a case in a special court on Thursday, making Jha and Khanal the main defendants against 21 including 19 individuals and 2 companies, with a demand to recover about 920 million bigos, the same amount of fines and 230 million already spent from the defendants. It has been confirmed by the authority's investigation that the group including Jha and Khanal colluded in the procurement company selection process from the purchase of equipment and consulting services.

In the indictment of the authority filed in the special court, it is mentioned that "from the initial stage, the officials and employees of the authority entered into a purchase agreement in collusion with the plan to damage the government property in any way". However, both the former presidents have insisted that they are not responsible because they are working from the staff level in all the processes from the foundation of the purchase to the contract. According to the officials of the authority involved in the investigation, this statement of theirs is just an 'attempt' to evade blame and has no meaning. In the statement given by Jha and Khanal, it is mentioned that 'the documents related to procurement were approved by the procurement unit only after examination and recommendation of the concerned branch/division'.

In a statement with the authority before the filing of the case, the then chairman of the authority said that he had selected a consulting service provider for the operation of the system and started the process in accordance with the Procurement Act, the procurement regulations of the authority and the MDMS regulations and that all the processes were decided step by step from the staff level, so he approved it. .

'The term of reference and cost estimate prepared for that have been approved on the recommendation of the relevant branch and division,' he said in the statement, 'The cost estimate is being re-reviewed as the price for the containerized data center is higher than the amount mentioned by Laurasia UK, which has been selected as a consultant. It was not considered suitable to do. The authority has mentioned that the decision made in this process is defamatory and meant to embezzle money.

To what extent the same standards have been made for purchasing goods and consulting services. It is mentioned in the prosecution of the authority that procurement of goods and services cannot be made the same criteria. 111 million US dollars seems unnaturally high from a purchase agreement of the same standard. Whereas, experts related to this in the authority have given the opinion that these goods and services can be purchased for 17 million US dollars less than the authority mentioned. Those technicians also gave this opinion to the authority before the procurement process started. However, it was found that the group including the then chairman Jha ignored it and maintained a higher price.

According to the cost estimate of the higher price, based on the contract document received as a sample from Laurasia in the UK, the authority approved the cost estimate as 111 million 76 thousand US dollars excluding the value added tax. A telecommunication and technology expert has given an opinion by appearing in the commission that the cost estimation (main manpower) of this kind of customized MDMS system for software development and data processing will cost only 4 lakh 3 thousand 448 US dollars.

"Experts' opinion, even after adding expenses such as training, maintenance services, connectivity, etc., the amount prepared and approved by the authority seems to have been defrauded by keeping the price high," it is mentioned in the indictment of the authority. After the

, Khanal, who came as the chairman of the authority, executed the purchase agreement. He said in the statement that he had a role in making decisions on the evaluation committee report on MDMS procurement, including payment in terms of project implementation. "When the report is submitted to the office, a covering letter is submitted by the coordinator (chairman) of the evaluation committee and the process proceeds according to the instructions in the same letter," Khanal said in the statement, "The responsibility of keeping records of the said paper is the responsibility of the procurement unit and the infrastructure branch." He claimed that he was not guilty of the purchase agreement only after approval. Khanal said that the process was taken forward only after ordering the procurement unit to submit open comments from technical and procurement experts while deciding on the issue of Mobilioner Green-IT and Infra Data (JV) among the two shortlisted candidates.

The authority decided to implement the MDMS system in order to control the mobile phones imported illegally from abroad and to keep the details of the imported phones correct in the government records. For this, on October 10, 2074, the authority submitted a report along with the draft of MDMS and prepared the basis for the purchase agreement. In the same year, the procurement process proposal was submitted on January 26, and on May 10, 2075, the authority board meeting decided to proceed with the procurement contract.

On May 28, when the letter of intent was requested for this, it was also found that the then president Jha had manipulated to get the companies he favored to join. When the agreement was reached, Khanal had already become the chairman.

Telecommunication technology experts made a data processing plan to build and implement the software with the participation of 13 people including 6 foreigners and 7 locals. In the estimated cost of 4 lakh 3 thousand 448 US dollars, the staff and officials of the authority mentioned the cost estimate of 11 million 1176 thousand 73 dollars for support service connectivity and software, according to the opinion of the commission, they kept bad faith in the purchase of goods and services.

In procurement irregularities, the former chairman of the authority, including Jha and Khanal, senior director Anandraj Khanal, deputy director Meenprasad Aryal and Surendralal Hada, director Dipesh Acharya, assistant directors Vinodchandra Shrestha, Sandeep Adhikari, Suryaprasad Lamichhane, Revathiram Panth, Pratishka Poudel, Neerajan Koirala and Vijaykumar Rai Yadav and Deputy Director Achutanand Mishra has been made the main respondent.