Tourism board to approach apex court

Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) has finally decided to request the Supreme Court to find a way out to end the year-long selection process for a chief executive officer (CEO).

“We have decided to approach the Supreme Court to give its decision as two members of the NTB board after its reinstatement have failed to

attend any of the board meetings,” said a board member from the private sector Pampha Dhamala.

Due to the conflicting interests of representatives from the private sector, the board has failed to organise its meeting, which was supposed to form a three-member subcommittee that would further move ahead with the CEO selection process.

“NTB board is now complete with members comprising of representatives from government and private sector, but due to self interests of some people in the board, we have been failing to organise even our regular meetings,” she said.

According to Dhamala, the board can neither organise its meeting nor form a subcommittee for the CEO selection process unless all board members are present. “There is a conflicting interest among board members and it will be quite unusual for the ministry to interfere with the CEO selection process,” said minister for culture, tourism and civil aviation Post Bahadur Bogati during the 14th anniversary celebrations of NTB.

The minister also said that he is quite surprised with the tussle among the board members. “It is quite disappointing that even after a year, NTB is still without a CEO,” he said. He also made it clear that the ministry does not want to interfere with the selection process, as it does not want to face any accusations of political appointments.

“There are deserving applicants and the board must start the process in a proper way,” he said, adding that the CEO selection process should not be politicised.

During the programme, officiating CEO of NTB Subash Nirola expressed the need to focus more on marketing and promotional activities. According to Nirola, the World Tourism Council has announced its ‘One Billion Tourism, One Billion

Opportunities’ programme but Nepal still has not been able to create its market in neighbouring countries. “The efficiency of NTB has declined as there is no CEO at present,” said chairperson of Employees Union NTB Pradeep Basnet.

source: The Himalayan Times,18 Nov 2012