CPN-UML lawmaker Surya Thapa will lead the seven-strong parliamentary probe committee formed to investigate cooperatives fraud.
The House of Representatives (HoR) meeting Tuesday evening has formed the committee including two lawmakers each from Nepali Congress (NC) and CPN-UML, and one each from CPN (Maoist Center), Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) and RPP.
Speaker Dev Raj Ghimire told the HoR that the committee included Thapa and Sarita Bhusal from UML, Badri Pandey and Ishwori Devi Neupane from NC, Lekh Nath Dahal from Maoist Center, Shishir Khanal from RSP, and Dhurba Bahadur Pradhan from RPP.
The committee has been given a deadline of three months to complete its investigation.
The opposition parties including NC have been demanding parliamentary probe committee pointing that Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane has been linked to embezzlement of funds from various cooperatives and the issue about his alleged involvement in cooperative fraud should be addressed.
The two sides had already agreed to form the parliamentary probe committee and a task force was formed to prepare the terms of reference (ToR) for the committee. But it had failed to agree on whether Lamichhane should be named in the ToR of the parliamentary probe committee or not.
The task force formed to finalize the terms of reference for the parliamentary probe committee reached a four-point agreement on the ToR during a meeting held at the Ministry of Law at the Singha Durbar earlier on Tuesday.
According to the agreement, the parliamentary probe committee will look into structural problems of the overall cooperative sector and issues of troubled cooperatives, and investigate individuals associated with Gorkha Media Network as well as cooperatives whose funds have gone to Gorkha Media Network.
The task force submitted the ToR for the parliamentary probe committee to Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal.
