New CEO for Nepal Telecom in process

June 18, 2016: As the tenure of current MD/ CEO of Nepal Telecom, the Government owned telecom operator, is going to finish in the month of Bhadra, Government has initiated the procedure to appoint new CEO in the company. Government has even changed the TOR (Terms of Reference) for the new CEO appointment. The TOR was first made by a committee led by Tirtha Man shakya, Ex Chief of Public service Commission (Lok Sewa Ayog), as a result of the agitation from technical group including Engineers, against the appointment of current MD, Buddhi Prasad Acharya who is the first with non technical background to assume the position. The committee formation along with other issues like Capping, Company restructuring, Technical Audit and employees benefits were included in a pact reached after 22 days of protest by the Technical group. The signatures were made by then Secretary of MOIC (chairman of NT board) Mr. Sunil Bahadur Rawal, NT MD Mr. Buddhi Prasad Acharya, Coordinator of Nepal Telecom technical group Mr. Dinesh Panthy and all five active trade Unions in the company.

Based on the study on technical companies both inside and outside the country, the report from the Tirtha Man Shakya led committee has recommended for the Education qualification to be an Engineer with Masters degree in Management or respective technical subjects for a competitive technical company like Nepal Telecom.

Sushil Koirala led Government had made a first edit on the TOR, as per recommendation from NT board, which included the qualification to be having education of Masters level in Commerce, Economics, Business Administration, IT or Engineering and having experience of fifteen years in any telecom operator like Nepal Telecom, which should include 5 years in senior officer post.

Current government has made the changes in the TOR without any significant logic for getting better CEO in the 92 percent government owned company. The latest change in the TOR has added Masters in development, Management to the range of educational qualification, and opened up to any personnel with experience of 15 years in telecom operators or government owned/ Semi government organizations including 5 years in the position of Senior Official (8th or 9th level) or Managers (Level 10th or above/ First grade or above). While there is equal chance of appointment of new CEO from officials working in other government owned organizations, they have made a criteria to give extra 3 points ( out of total 15 points) for the ones who is eligible from the company itself which according to employees inside, is a mere show up.

It is known that the technical group along with several unions have already discussed about the governments process as they claim it would not do good for the company with a CEO from outside the company and of non technical background (so far technical group is concerned and the main issue that agitated them two years back). The unions have even expressed dissatisfaction to the attack on the independence of the company for making the cabinet superior to decide on all issues in the company, which is also included in the new TOR.

The tenure of new CEO is known to be 3 years with monthly salary of 2 lakhs and can be extended for 2 years based on his/her performance.