BREAKING! The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) has registered a corruption case against the Nepal Telecom Managing Director (NTC MD) Sangita Pahadi and 17 others. On Jestha 25, 2082, the corruption watchdog filed the case at the Special Court that includes the current Ntc MD Pahadi and 17 others for extending the repair and maintenance (AMC) of Billing System (BSS) in NT network.
CIAA conducted an investigation following a complaint regarding corruption in the billing system. The complaint was against the decision to continue with the old system, extending the contract without any competition instead of calling for a new tender.
The authority came to the conclusion after the investigation for the corruption in the company of the billing system’s AMC contract. Therefore, it has registered a corruption charge against 18 individuals, including the company’s sitting MD, Pahadi (then CCO), Chinese company and its contractors.
Also: Teramocs Corruption case against 18 personnel
Nepal Telecom has been using convergent real time billing system with a single platform for all of its services including GSM mobile, fiber, internet, leased line, wired/wireless broadband, etc. The company has also opened up a new tender for its billing system.
CIAA files corruption case against Nepal Telecom MD Pahadi and others
The authority has filed a corruption case against some prominent figures. The list includes the current MD and the former MD Sunil Paudel, and the then CTO Pratibha Baidhya. Also, others are those who served at the company in various positions at the time. They are the then CFO Rajendra Shrestha, then COO Jhabindra Lal Upadhyaya, then Director Binita Shrestha, then Director Amul Pradhan among others. The authority alleges that the figures’ action caused financial losses to the company by illegally entering into additional agreements (with higher amount) for the company’s billing system.
It’s worth noting that the against CIAA’s instructions, NT went into an annual agreement for maintenance of billing system with Asia Info. Additionally, CIAA alleges that additional contracts were reached by increasing the cost.
A compensation of Rs 33.48 crore (Rs 334.8 million) has been claimed against 18 people on charges of corruption in the telecom’s billing system.
Pahadi was appointed as Ntc MD on Thursday, Bhadra 20, 2081. But the corruption case could have a severe impact on her incumbency.
In recent times, CIAA has acted aggressively over matters of “corruption”. And this could be one of the biggest corruption cases where almost all of the C level (highest level) employees have been charged, and has brought a big turbulence at the government-owned telco.
