The Special Court has found four board members of Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) including the then chairman and general manager of NAC guilty of corruption in the purchase of two wide-body aircraft of the corporation. Seven of the aircraft suppliers have also been found guilty.
A bench of Special Court Judges Tek Narayan Kunwar, Tej Narayan Singh Rai, and Ritendra Thapa found the then NAC general manager Sugat Ratna Kansakar, Tourism Secretary and the then NAC board chairman Shankar Prasad Adhikari, the then director general of the Department of Customs Shishir Dhungana, and Joint Secretary Buddhi Sagar Lamichhane guilty. All four are NAC board members.
The court has, however, acquitted the then tourism minister Jeevan Bahadur Shahi in the case.
The court has sentenced Kansakar to two years and nine months in prison. His sentence has been halved on the grounds of his being a senior citizen.
Similarly, it has sentenced the then chairman and tourism secretary Adhikari to one year and nine months in prison, while slapping a jail sentence of one year and six months each on Dhungana and Lamichhane.
On April 4 this year, the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) had filed a case against 32 people charging them with corruption in the procurement of two wide-body aircraft and sought Rs 1.471 billion in claims from the accused.
Other employees and board members of NAC have been acquitted in the case.
They include the then general manager of the Department of Money Laundering Investigation and NAC board member Jeevan Prakash Sitaula, the then acting director of NAC Ramhari Sharma Sedhain, the then acting director and present deputy general manager Janak Raj Kalakheti, and the then NAC deputy director Prabhas Kumar Karmacharya.
Similarly, the CIAA had charged the aircraft suppliers with corruption. They include British national Deepak Sharma, president of International Supply Chain, AAR Corp Inc, USA; German national Christian Nuehlen, director of Hifly X Ireland Limited and representative of German Aviation Capital Germany; Oleg Calistru, finance director of German Aviation Capital Germany; John M Holmes, president and CEO of AAR International Inc USA; Ana Topa, managing director of German Aviation Capital GMBH Germany; Paulo Mirpuri, president of Hifly Airlines Portugal; Gerald Thornton, director of Hifly X Ireland Limited; Markus Radbruch, head of aviation at Norton Rose Fulbright LLP Germany, and Ralf Springer, senior consultant at Norton Rose Fulbright.
Among them, those found guilty are Deepak Sharma, Oleg Calistru, John M Holmes, Ana Topa, Paulo Mirpuri, Gerald Thornton, and Christian Nuehlen. They have each been sentenced to one year and six months in prison.
The NAC had formed a sub-committee under Kansakar on January 18, 2016, for procurement of new planes. The government on September 14, 2016, wrote to the NAC stating it would provide guarantee for procurement of airplanes.
The NAC on September 26 in the same year published a 45-day notice for procurement of two Airbus planes. The notice invited bids for Airbus A 330-200 planes with Rolls-Royce Trent 772B engines that have clocked 1,000 flights hours.
The sub-committee formed by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament concluded in its report that inviting bids for old planes and specifying the kind of engines violated the Public Procurement Act, which prohibits mention of a particular brand, trademark, patent, design or manufacturer while preparing specifications except when there is no other option. It also took exception to procurement of the planes from an agent instead of procuring it directly from the manufacturer.
The NAC acquired the first wide-body plane on June 28 and the second on July 26, 2017. The procurement process came under the scanner after it was revealed that the NAC had procured planes with maximum takeoff weight of 230 tons after formulating a business plan to procure those with 242 tons.
The PAC concluded after investigation in 2018 that the NAC had suffered a loss of Rs 4.35 billion in the procurement.
