Nepal Police immediately responded by forming two separate probe teams headed by Deputy Inspector General (DIG) on the same day. [break]
“It is not a formal directive as such,” said a high-ranking police official seeking anonymity. “The directive, however, is surprising. CIAA, even after sifting the documents for three weeks, could not identify any faulty point.”
“The police reports, of course, are unlikely discover any wrongdoing,” said officials. “The issue has taken an unpredictable turn.” The probe teams are headed by DIG Birendra Babu Shrestha and DIG Parashuram Khatri. The teams will supposedly revisit the bidding processes adopted by the police units in forty districts and submit their reports within 15 days.
Nepal Police spends Rs 2.41billion per annum on rations for its 60,000-strong force. Rations contracts have been a long-drawn source of corruption in the police organization.
It has been found squandering around Rs 290 million through largely unnecessary rations contracts to private companies. On papers, the contractors are supposed to provide rations to each cop in kind though more than 80 percent of the police personnel are actually getting cash with 12 percent of the per head agreed amount cut off as a commission margin.
“The ongoing contract system needs to be reviewed,” police spokesman DIG Bigyan Raj Sharma told Republica. “When almost everybody is getting cash, there is no need of contracts for distributing rations in kind.”
CIAA had taken over the files of rations contracts of forty different district police units following media reports about irregularities in the bidding process. “All that the CIAA deciphered out of its three-week-long investigation was differences in contract prices between Nepal Police and APF,” said officials.
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