The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the parliament has claimed that procurement of two Airbus A 330 airplanes by Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) has violated the Public Procurement Act and the NAC’s procurement bylaws.
Speaking in the PAC meeting at Singha Durbar on Sunday PAC Chairman Bharat Shah pointed that the NAC procured new airplanes after inviting bids for old ones mentioning the name of the brand. Shah argued that the process of procuring the new planes after inviting bids for old ones cannot be termed normal.
American company AAR Corporation had submitted the lowest bids in the tender process inviting bids for airplanes that have clocked up to 1,000 hours of flight time.
The International Relations Committee of the parliament on Friday had also formed a sub-committee to investigate purchase of the wide-body planes.
A meeting of the committee held at Singha Durbar in the afternoon formed the sub-committee under Nepali Congress (NC) lawmaker Prakash Man Singh. CPN lawmaker Narad Muni Rana and Renuka Gurung of Federal Socialist Forum Nepal are the other members in the sub-committee that has been given a deadline of one month to complete investigation and submit report.
The sub-committee will investigate issues starting from procurement process to marketization of the planes. Management of the planes will also be investigated as the NAC is reportedly suffering daily loss of Rs 10 million after purchase of the two wide-body planes and has asked grant from the government.
