Kathmandu, Nepal, August 15, 2019: Serial incidents of suicides by the corruption accused government officials and failure to catch the corruption accused ‘big fish’ has raised serious question marks over the investigation of the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA), the only constitutional body to check corruption in the country.
Though suicide of corruption accused government employees were not new, the recent death of non-gazette government official Hari Prasad Acharya, a local of Udaypur district, has left a clear sign that Acharya like junior officials would have entrapped to take any foul decisions.
As the CIAA has taken action against most of the junior officials in recent years instead of the big one bureaucrats or politicians even though several incidents have proved their involvement in corruption, questions have obviously been arising over the performance of the CIAA.
Leaving a sardonic suicide note, deceased Acharya had wished CIAA chief Dinesh Ghimire would live to be 200 for compelling hanging himself. Though I have not taken a single rupee as a bribe, I am accused for the same compelling for the suicide, states the suicide note. Deceased Acharya was accused of registering public land at Badbhanjyang as an individual property.
Though the death of a corruption accused would not be a matter of debate in the front of controlling corruption or mentioning the good governance in the country, the question of now is that why the CIAA has failed even to initiate process to catch the so-called big fishes involved in the corruption.
As many cases in recent years have been indicating that lower-ranking bureaucrats have mostly involved in the corruption instead of high-profile officials and politicians, there is hard to believe that junior official cannot involve alone in the corruption if the high ranking officials do not encourage them.
Though several high ranking officials including former Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal and several former ministers and top bureaucrats are accused of involving in the multibillion corruption cases, the CIAA has not dared even to enquire them.
Registration of the Lalita Niwas land in the name of various individuals, wide body jet purchase scam, Nepal Oil Corporation land purchase scam and many others have been pending at the CIAA for months and years though CIAA Chief Commissioner Ghimire had repeatedly been claiming for the investigation of high scams.
