​NOC corruption 

The excesses of Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) Managing Director Gopal Bahadur Khadka are getting harder and harder to ignore. This is someone who openly admitted to black-marketing of fuel during the five months of the 2015 border blockade. More recently, a Republica investigation unearthed evidence of his personal involvement in embezzlement of up to Rs 700 million in the course of buying lands for new NOC depots. Now, another investigation has revealed that he has embezzled around Rs 200 million during employee-recruitment and issuance of permits for tankers, gas bullets, petrol pumps and gas companies. His crimes don’t end there. The corporation, a government entity, is by law forbidden from earning a profit beyond recouping its costs. Yet, every month, it is generating half a billion in profits, which it is wantonly distributing to its employees, again illegally. Even though the Nepali media have repeatedly exposed Khadka’s wrongdoings, no action has been taken against him. The only way to make sense of this is to assume that Khadka funnels a part of his unearned money into the coffers of big parties and their leaders. One person he is thought of as particularly close to is the disgraced former CIAA chief, Lokman Singh Karki. 
 

Our top political leaders have long been suspected of shunting aside public money for private benefits and of cultivating shady businessmen. This culture has become so common that these days it is seen as business as usual. As our elections are becoming more and more expensive, the political parties see no alternative to raising as much money as they can, from every imaginable source, to get a leg-up on their competitors who, too, are sure to be up to no good. This vicious cycle has thoroughly corrupted our polity. And it is people like Khadka and Karki, who know their ways around corridors of power and who can spend their way out of trouble, who thrive on this corrupt culture. What we find particularly galling is the inaction of the legislature. Our parliament has a Good Governance committee precisely to hold government agencies to account. Why is the committee quiet when the media is offering one after another proof of the wrongdoing of NOC management? 
 

Chances are that our MPs too have been instructed by their political bosses not to get too nosey about the NOC. Although Nepali judiciary is to a large degree independent, it too is not completely free from political influence. The question then is: Who will bell the proverbial cat when the whole system is corrupt? We worry that such blatant embezzlement of public funds, coupled with inaction of the political class, will fuel public resentment against political parties, and ultimately against the democratic system itself. And growing public cynicism of political actors is not a healthy sign for a budding democracy. If our politicians and lawmakers are really people’s representatives, and if they are serious about preserving the sanctity of the democratic process, they must learn to work in public interest and not for vested interests. They can choose to act now. It is not too late for the CIAA and the Good Governance committee to start investigating the oil monopoly. 

 
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