Of concern

The Himalayan Times

2 May 2014

Of concern

Kudos to the police team in Rupendehi who have arrested 21 persons including the tankers and recovered around 17,000 litres of stolen diesel from underground reservoir built on the private land as reported in “ 17,000 litres of stolen diesel recovered” (THT, 30 April, Page 1). In addition, police team also arrested 13 persons and 14 tankers in another place and recovered around additional 3,600 litres of diesel. This has happened when NOC has been claiming huge loss in its operation and the country is reeling under crisis of petroleum products. This is the first incident of its kind where the police have confiscated such a huge volume of petroleum products misappropriated by the NOC staff themselves.

This kind of misappropriation of responsibilities by and unscrupulous activities of the NOC staff could be prevailing in other parts of the country. Who knows? This raises several concerns and questions as to whether the heavy loss incurred by NOC is genuine. NOC, which is currently in debt of around Rs. 30 billion to the government, commercial banks and other financial institutions, incurs a monthly loss of Rs. 727.8 million. How does it repay back such a huge volume of loan if it continues to incur heavy loss? It has been widely criticized for its mismanagement and failure to control institutionalized corruption and leakages. Several commissions were formed in the past to investigate the effectiveness of and make recommendations for the improvement for NOC. None of the findings of these commissions seems to have been seriously implemented.

Time has come for the government to be serious in these grave incidents related to NOC and direct CIAA to step in and carry out its thorough investigations to uncover the gross irregularities at the soonest possible and punishes the culprits. Otherwise, sooner or later NOC will definitely incur heavy losses pushing it and the government to the extreme financial crisis. What has compelled the government not to privatize it and engage other private parties as well in fuel management have become the concern of the common people.

Rai Biren Bangdel

Maharjgunj, Kathmandu