Tourism board calls emergency meeting today

As its senior officials as well as a few board members were suspended due to the graft case filed against them yesterday by the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) at the Special Court, Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) is going to hold its meeting with the remaining board members tomorrow to find a way forward from this serious situation.

NTB’s Chairman Suresh Man Shrestha, who is also secretary of Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation has circulated the message to the remaining five board members to be prepared for a meeting tomorrow evening, as per Ghanendra Bahadur Shrestha, one of the board members of NTB.

“The meeting will have discussions on how to cope with this emergency.”

After the board meeting, Shrestha will send the proposal regarding the appointment of the board members as well as senior level staff at NTB. NTB, established in partnership between the government and private sector tourism industry, is dedicated for developing and marketing tourism products in Nepal.

NTB has to appoint three board members to give complete shape to the board and one member will be from the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal to take the place of Ratish Chandra Lal Suman, director general of the authority, who has been suspended at the moment.

CIAA, on Friday filed a graft case at the Special Court against all the directors namely, Aditya Baral, Hikmat Singh Ayer, Kashiraj Bhandari and its officiating CEO Nandini Lahe Thapa. Four managers of NTB have also been accused in the corruption scandal. Now there are no directors at NTB and the organisation lacks senior level staff.

Similarly, among the 10 board members, four of them have been charged in the corruption case. Phur Gyalzen Sherpa, Rewat Bahadur Thapa, Dhruba Narayan Shrestha and Ratish Chandra Lal Suman were suspended on the corruption charge from Friday.

CIAA, on Friday had filed case against 23 people including past board members and those who had served in managerial positions. CIAA has sought to recover altogether Rs 810.42 million from them.

source:the himalayan times,4 April 2015