Sitaram Prasai and Girija Koirala involved in corruption:

Prasai, Koirala and the Blind Eye



By Akhilesh Tripathi


The series of allegations and counter allegations between the Nepali Congress (NC) and CPN-M that was triggered by the dramatic arrest of “wanted man” Sitaram Prasai has ended. According to reports, NC President and Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala who, following Prasai’s handover to the police by the Maoists’ Young Communist League (YCL), had dubbed the latter as “a criminal group”, and Maoist Chairman Prachanda, who had in turn called Koirala “a protector of corruption”, have agreed not to speak against each other publicly in the future. The agreement reached in Baluwatar may have patched up the differences between the two sides but it must have come as a rude reminder to those buying the dream of a New Nepal sold by the same old politicians.

Prasai is not a saint. He was wanted by the police before he was wanted by the YCL. A former chairman of the Nepal Cottage and Small Industries Development Bank (CSIDB), Prasai had been issued an arrest warrant nearly a year ago on charges of extending loans with the intention of fraud, causing a loss of Rs 280 million to the bank. What Prasai has been accused of is a grave financial crime by any standard. And this is why the Nepal Rastra Bank, the country’s central bank, had asked the police to arrest Prasai. However, our police department surprisingly could not find him for over 10 months although he was regularly attending office, public programmes at the country’s only international airport amid VIP security and throwing lavish parties attended by top politicians, parliamentarians, ministers in the current government and security chiefs (UML General Secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal, Minister for Peace and Reconciliation Ram Chandra Paudel and Armed Police Force Chief Basudev Oli were among the high-profile invitees to Prasai’s son’s wedding party).

Yet Prasai was successfully avoiding arrest, mocking the politicians' routine pledge to uphold the rule of law. His arrest did not take place until he was abducted from his bank’s office and handed over to the police by the YCL the next day in early June.

Why the police could not find Prasai for all these months became clear to everybody the day he was handed over to the Kathmandu District Police Office. Prasai’s arrest saga had clearly caused very visible discomfort to PM Koirala. “I will not spare anyone involved in such activities,” a visibly annoyed and irate Koirala was seen saying on the national television screens later in the evening, while pushing the mikes away after being asked to comment on the arrest of Prasai, who also happens to be a relative of the powerful Koirala clan (Prasai’s daughter is married to the grandson of PM Koirala’s elder brother late Matrika Prasad Koirala).

Koirala’s remarks were astonishing, perhaps even shocking. Not necessarily, however, because they were untrue. PM Koirala, who is also the acting head of state, did not see the YCL criminals when they were attacking the meetings and gatherings of other parties, storming girls’ campuses in the heart of the capital city and ruthlessly beating students affiliated to other parties. Nor did he see their crime when they were abducting, extorting and torturing businessmen, torching private and public vehicles, storming and vandalizing government offices and thrashing chief district officers. But the day the YCL handed over to the police a person wanted by the state on corruption charges was the day when Koirala first dubbed them as criminals.

Political re-adjustment alone is not going to create a new Nepal. No Way. The dream of a new Nepal will not be possible until our politicians, behind the curtain, keep hobnobbing with people like Prasai at their parties and try to protect them while making hollow speeches full of long rhetoric about curbing corruption. Maybe Prasai’s abduction and eventual handover to the police was a case of politically-driven vigilantism but here it’s the state itself to be blamed since it provided the excuse for this drama to take place. And as the head of the government and acting head of state, Koirala should take the responsibility for this.

Prasai is finally behind bars now. But a few like him are still not. Businessman and owner of Shree Distillery, Mathura Prasad Maskey is one of them. An arrest warrant was issued against Maskey for evading government taxes worth hundreds of millions of rupees more than two years ago. But he is still free, openly running his other enterprises in Kathmandu. His arrest, by the police, will show whether the government has learnt from the Prasai saga- not to turn a blind eye. Or is it waiting for the YCL again?