The meeting held on initiation of House of Representatives (HoR) Speaker Dev Raj Ghimire to ensure smooth operation of the House has ended inconclusively even on Tuesday.
CPN (Maoist Center) Chairman and Prime Minister (PM) Pushpa Kamal Dahal, CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli, CPN (Unified Socialist) Chairman Madhav Kumar Nepal, Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) President and Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane, and Nepali Congress (NC) General Secretary Gagan Thapa and former general secretary Krishna Sitaula held discussion at the PM's residence in Baluwatar in presence of Speaker Ghimire. But the meeting failed to yield any resolution with both the ruling coalition and the main opposition NC adamant on their respective stances.
NC has been raising the issue of cooperatives scam in the House and demanding a parliamentary committee to investigate involvement of Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) and Home Minister Lamichhane in the scam. But it has yet to obstruct the House over the issue.
The Monday’s meeting failed to reach any conclusion with the ruling coalition refusing to form the parliamentary committee and NC refusing to budge from its demand for one.
Speaking after the meeting NC General Secretary Thapa said that the meeting did not yield any result as the ruling coalition did not seem ready to form a parliamentary committee.
The House meeting scheduled for 11 Tuesday morning has yet to start in lack of agreement among the parties. Home Minister Lamichhane is scheduled to present the amendment bill on the Political Parties Act in the House meeting on Tuesday and NC seems to be planning to prevent him from doing so.
The two sides met even on Monday but failed to yield any result. The meeting featuring CPN (Maoist Center) Chairman and Prime Minister (PM) Pushpa Kamal Dahal, NC President Sher Bahadur Deuba, CPN-UML Vice-chairman Bishnu Paudel, Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) President and Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane and chief whips of the four parties failed to reach any conclusion.
Some victims had filed a complaint against Lamichhane at the District Police Office, Kaski on February 5 alleging him of misappropriation of money of Surya Darshan Savings and Credit Cooperative Limited of Pokhara, Kaski.
Gorkha Media, which had Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) President and Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane as shareholder and managing director (MD), has been found to have taken loan of Rs 105 million from Supreme Cooperative, Rs 120 million from Sahara Cooperative of Chitwan and Rs 100 million from Suryadarshan Cooperative of Pokhara.
Clause 50 of the Cooperatives Act 2017 stipulates that a cooperative can accept deposit only from its members, and lend to only its members. Similarly, the Company Directive 2015 also prohibits a private company from acquiring shares of a cooperative and stipulates that even the shares acquired before the directive came into force be transferred to others within a year. It also prohibits a company from borrowing from a cooperative.
Promoter of Gorkha Media GB (Gitendra) Rai was also chairman of Supreme Cooperative. He made Om Prakash Gurung chairman only two years back and remained patron. GB Rai had also opened Suryodaya Cooperative.
The cooperatives have yet to return billions saved by thousands of depositors.
NC has been demanding a parliamentary committee to investigate the scam including involvement of Lamichhane pointing that the government cannot conduct fair and impartial investigation in the case involving Home Minister Lamichhane. But speaking in the House PM Dahal has already given Lamichhane a clean chit.
