By Bibek Bhandari
Nepal’s anti-corruption watchdog has filed criminal charges against ex-ministers, senior bureaucrats and a Chinese state-owned construction giant accused of inflating costs and manipulating contracts at a multimillion-dollar infrastructure project.
The Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) on Sunday charged 55 people, including five former tourism and finance ministers, 10 ex-government secretaries and dozens of other high-ranking officials. Also named was China CAMC Engineering, its chairman Wang Bo and regional general manager Liu Shengcheng.
The agency alleges the defendants colluded to inflate construction costs and siphoned off at least US$74 million during the construction of Pokhara International Airport, and is demanding roughly 8 billion rupees (US$55 million) in damages from each.
Source :SCMP
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