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Dynamic Airline to lose licence
- Ministry finds cash guarantee not deposited
KATHMANDU, AUG 17 -
The Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation has been found to have granted a license to Dynamic Airline to conduct international flights without securing a cash guarantee of Rs. 5 million as per the terms of reference set by the cabinet. The airline had obtained the permit on March 18.
Officials at the ministry said the airline’s license would be revoked as it had duped the ministry. Dynamic Airline had presented the deposit slip of a cheque for the guarantee money that bounced. The airline had deposited a bad cheque at the Lazimpat branch of Everest Bank on Feb. 12, 2010, and submitted the deposit slip to the ministry to show that the required funds had been deposited.
The ministry issued the license more than a month after it received the deposit slip, but it hadn’t checked all through this time whether the money had actually been deposited.
According to a ministry official, the ministry only found out that the money had not been deposited during the internal auditing before the end of the last fiscal year.
Ratish Chandra Lal, a member of the evaluation committee, defended issuing a recommendation to Dynamic Airline saying that the committee would not check whether the money had actually been deposited. “We see the capacity of the firm to inject capital, its existing financial strength and the status of manpower, among others,” he added.
However, a senior official of the ministry said that the evaluation committee should have checked before recommending issuing a license.
Ranjan Krishna Aryal, joint secretary at the ministry, admitted there had been an error on the case. “The airline seems to have been involved in misconduct wilfully,” he added. When asked why the ministry had granted a license without verifying whether the guarantee amount had been deposited, he refused to make a comment. “We are investigating the matter,” he told the Post.
But, another official of the ministry said that there had been weakness on the part of the ministry while granting the license. “It is also due to Everest Bank where Dynamic Airline had deposited the cheque, not informing the ministry in time about the cheque bouncing,” said the official. Everest Bank has been doing government transactions for the last few years.
The ministry has already asked the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal not to grant an air operator certificate to Dynamic Airline. The ministry is also studying if the airline could be prosecuted on charges of fraud, said the official.
The Post’s repeated attempts to contact the airline’s chairman Om Prakash Bishwokarma on his mobile were not fruitful.
In case of failure to bring three aircraft for international flights within two years of obtaining the license, the airline would face cancellation of the license along with confiscation of the guarantee amount as per the existing civil aviation regulations.
The Tourism Ministry has asked the Ministry of Finance (MoF) to take necessary action against Everest Bank too for issuing a cheque deposit slip for an ordinary cheque instead of a good for payment cheque for a deposit as large as Rs. 5 million.
The MoF has also written to Nepal Rastra Bank on Aug. 12 for necessary action against Everest Bank as per the letter sent by the Tourism Ministry.
Tourism Ministry officials also criticised the bank for accepting a cash guarantee at the Lazimpat branch saying that only the Singha Durbar branch of the bank had been allowed to receive guarantee amounts to be deposited in the government’s revenue.
Mohini Shrestha, operation in-charge of Everest Bank, said the bank had treated the cheque of Dynamic Airline in a normal way and it had bounced.
“We accept deposits at every branch because we provide any branch banking service,” she added.
Posted on: 2010-08-18 08:16
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