KATHMANDU, AUG 04 -
In stark violation of Anti-corruption Act 2059 and other legal provisions related to corruption, before the last fiscal year ended most of the local bodies across the country stashed around Rs. 3 billion of local development budgets into bank accounts that cannot be frozen.

This fact was disclosed during a meeting of officials from the offices of Attorn-ey General (AG), National Vigilance Centre (NVC), Auditor General (AG) and Ministry of Local Development (MoLD) on Monday.

The AGs, Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA), MoLD and Finance Ministry have been told to take every possible measure to unearth the details of the transferred amount.  The money was deposited into fool-proof accounts — known as Account C — as the local bodies feared that the unspent budget would be frozen before the end of the last fiscal year.

“It seems the local bodies have also not abided by the directives of the concerned ministry,” said NVC Spokesman Sher Bahadur Dhungana. Officials said most local bodies try to spend the budget amount received from the government, donors and taxes  before the end of fiscal year. However, if they put into a bank account that cannot be frozen it is clear they have malafide motives. “The money that they transfered is sheer misuse of grants and taxes,” Dhungana said. 

Before the end of the last fiscal, MoLD had issued directives to all VDCs, District DDCs and municipalities except those in 12 districts of the Mid and Far-Western regions not to transfer the budget into bank accounts that cannot be frozen.

Officials said local bodies also allocated large amount budget for consumer’s group, advance salary and released it to other bodies. Preliminary investigation by the NVC shows millions of rupees allocated for development have been misused.



Money deposited into Account C

Local bodies    Amount

Gorkha DDC    Rs 16.9 million

Gorkha Municipality    Rs 5 million

Nuwakot DDC    Rs 29.5 million 

Udayapur DDC    Rs 6.9 million

Triyuga Municipality    Rs 7.3 million

Kathmandu DDC    Rs 16.2 million

Bhaktapur DDC    Rs 4.6 million

Rupandehi DDC    Rs 4.4 million

Thimi Municipality    Rs 47.7 million     

Posted on: 2010-08-05 08:29

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