People’s representatives who are supposed to make policies and set examples are presenting falsified invoices in the name of car maintenance and receiving payments.

Amrita Anmol | CIJ, Nepal

How much does it cost to maintain a vehicle in a year? Vijay Bahadur Yadav, then chairman of the Agriculture, Forest, and Environment Committee of Lumbini Province, reportedly spent Rs 478,150 for it, that too in nine months (between  July 2020 and  April 2021).

Yadav, who spent so much money on car maintenance, convened seven meetings of the parliamentary committee during that period. He organized a monitoring mission to a forest in Narainapur, Banke. The Tata Storme SUV (Lu 1 Jha 442) he used was procured on November 14, 2018.

A year earlier, Yadav had presented invoices amounting to Rs 308,126 against the maintenance of his vehicle. When the vehicle had been on the road for seven months, Yadav had already received Rs 147,000 as reimbursement for vehicle maintenance despite a provision in the operation of government vehicles directive that only Rs 5,000 can be provided as reimbursement for maintenance of vehicles in their first two years in service. When asked about his vehicle expenses, Yadav says, “I need to frequent my hometown Banke and the road there is in a bad condition,” said.

Before that, Rs. 3 lakh 8 thousand 926 was spent on vehicle maintenance in FY 2076/77. Yadav had received payment of Rs. However, in the vehicle maintenance and operation guideline, it is mentioned that only Rs 5,000 should be provided monthly for the maintenance of the vehicle for two years. Claiming that so much has been spent on car maintenance, he says,

Yadav was appointed Minister for Land Management, Agriculture, and Cooperatives on April 18, 2020. A vehicle was provided to him. But within less than six months, his Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP) took disciplinary action against him, and he lost his ministerial as well provincial assembly member post.

The Lumbini Provincial Assembly provides the speaker, deputy speaker, parliamentary party chairs, chief whips and secretaries of the parties’ vehicles and drives and reimburses for payments made for fuel as well as maintenance of vehicles.

Rs 10 million in three years

In the last three and a half years, the Lumbini Provincial Assembly has spent an incredible amount on vehicle maintenance. According to the Provincial Assembly Secretariat, it spent Rs. 3.361 million on vehicle maintenance in the fiscal year 2020/2021. Similarly, Rs. 4.516 million was spent on maintenance of 32 vehicles in 2019/2020 and Rs 1.586 million was spent on maintenance of 23 vehicles in 2018/2019. When the provincial assembly was established in January 2018, Rs 299,904 had been spent on the maintenance of five vehicles it owned.

Bhumishwar Dhakal, chief whip of the CPN-UML, tops the list of lawmakers claiming unnatural reimbursements against vehicle maintenance. His vehicle was bought on November 30, 2018. According to the assembly’s records, Dhakal spent Rs 37,000 in the first year his vehicle was in service, Rs 782,000 in the second year and Rs 286,000 in the third.

The Safari Storme (Lu 1 Jha 456) that Dhakal used was damaged in an explosion in the fiscal year 2020/21. That is how he justifies the amount spent on repairs. However, the cost incurred was paid for by Lumbini General Insurance company, assembly records show.

There are many such examples. Lumbini Province’s Tourism, Rural and Urban Affairs Minister Dilli Bahadur Chaudhary was the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee until last year. He claimed Rs 280,979 in vehicle maintenance expenses when he was the chair of the committee. Dama Sharma, chair of the Internal Affairs and Law Committee, submitted an invoice of Rs 260,000, Asha Swarnakar, chair of the Physical Infrastructure and Development Committee, presented invoices totaling Rs 240,000. Kamal Raj Shrestha, chair of the special rights committee claimed to have spent Rs 211,000 on the vehicle repairs. The amounts claimed by the lawmakers in the name of maintenance expenses have been paid in full by the assembly secretariat.

While the assembly spends such a large amount on vehicle maintenance, most parliamentary committees use rented vehicles for their monitoring missions. Dinesh Adhikari, information officer at the assembly, said, “As the vehicles used by the officials can’t be taken on difficult roads in the hills, we hire vehicles for monitoring missions. The amount spent on the vehicles comes from the fuel expenses allocated for the missions.”

The vehicle procurement process in the province was also in dispute. The Lumbini province owns 15 Tata Stormes–11 were procured by the assembly, and four by the provincial government. While the state assembly paid Rs 7.2 million for one Tata Storme, the government paid Rs 7.3 million. The assembly is found to have bought the vehicle at a rate that is Rs 350,000 more than the then-market price. That means, the government spent Rs 450,000 more than the market price on each of the vehicles.

After the irregularities in the procurement process came to light, the accounts committee investigated the matter and directed the provincial government to return Rs 400,000 per vehicle and the assembly Rs 340,000 to the state coffers. However, the directive hasn’t been implemented.

Toothless directive

No. 8 of the Directive on Vehicle Maintenance and Operation 2015 states that the officials who are entitled to state vehicles should be provided only up to Rs 5,000 per month in vehicle maintenance expenses for the first two years. It states that an additional Rs 10,000 can be provided to special category officials and Rs 7,000 to the first-class officials three years after the purchase of a vehicle. Similarly, the law stipulates that in case of a car accident, the insurance company has to carry out maintenance. As the provincial government has not prepared a vehicle maintenance operation guideline, the federal government’s directive automatically comes to force. But ignoring this, the people’s representatives are making claims against vehicle maintenance expenses.

Vehicles purchased for office bearers in Lumbini Provincial Assembly at the Provincial Assembly premises. Photos Amrita Anmol.

The information officer of the assembly claims that the cost of ownership of Tata vehicles is high as they need a lot of repairs and spare parts are also expensive. According to him, the assembly has recruited a mechanical supervisor after maintenance expenses started increasing. The official says, “However, the cost has not gone down even after vehicles were repaired only upon recommendation from the mechanical supervisor.”

Mechanical engineers inspecting vehicles in government offices under the provincial government don’t agree with the claim. Vijay Adhikari, mechanical engineer at Lumbini government’s transport management office in Rupendehi, said it was not true that Tata’s vehicles were bad or their spare parts were too expensive. “The Tata Storme is stronger than others because it is designed to run smoothly on hilly and unpaved roads. Its spare parts are not expensive compared to others, ”says the engineer.

Asked why so much money is being spent on maintenance even though the car is insured, Keshav Sunar, an official at the administration division, said, “Only plastic and metal items will be insured. Maybe the private sector bargains to get a better deal. But we are unable to claim all the expenses incurred. So we have to spend the rest. ”

Sham investigation

Last year, questions were raised in the assembly about the expenditure incurred in the name of vehicle maintenance. This was the reason the assembly formed an investigation sub-committee under the leadership of Vaijnath Kalwar. Kalpana Pandey and Bishnu Panthi were members of the committee. Members of the investigative committee allege that some members of the public accounts committee themselves were in cahoots with vehicle maintenance service providers and bureaucrats. When the report of the investigation was submitted to the committee, members Kalpana Pandey and Vishnu Panthi were in favor of making it public. But other members stayed mum. The meeting of the Accounts Committee was held in Dang instead of Butwal so as not to touch on the irregularities.

“Employees and members of the Accounts Committee were saying that they would apologize and not make such mistakes in the future,” said Pandey, a member of the committee. “We received calls from the bureaucrats and the vehicle maintenance service providers saying they would take care of us if we took care of their files.” She said that she voiced her discontent after the contents of the report were altered when it was presented before the committee.

The exploitation of the state treasury in the name of vehicle maintenance has also flourished in the ministries and subordinate offices of the provinces. The Lumbini provincial government spent Rs 51.375 million on vehicle maintenance last year. According to the Office of the Comptroller General, the provincial government had allocated Rs. 57.7 million for vehicle maintenance.

In the second week of August last year, the provincial government had asked the assembly, the ministries, and all its subordinate offices for details about the condition of the vehicles. None have submitted them, as of January.

Government spokesperson and Minister for Internal Affairs and Information Tilak Ram Sharma claims that the vehicle may have cost a lot of money to repair as they might have aged. “We look at whether or not the vehicle was repaired at the designated place, and not so much at the amount spent,” says Minister Sharma. Minister Sharma claims that he did not know about the vehicle maintenance guideline, adding that no one was found guilty despite the suspicion of misuse of state funds in the earlier investigation by the accounts committee. “The province has not formulated directives on vehicle maintenance. Only by doing so, will it be easier to find the culprits and take action,” he said.

Inaction at all levels 

Meanwhile, after a complaint was lodged with the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority, on August 10, 2020, the Butwal office of the commission demanded documents related to vehicle maintenance from the accounts committee and proceeded with its investigation. “Some members of the investigation sub-committee formed earlier and the staff was involved tampered with the file sent to the authority,” said Pandey, a member of the investigation sub-committee. “Officials, bureaucrats, and lawmakers are in cahoots to embezzle money.”

Yaman Shrestha, information officer at the Butwal office of the authority, says that the case was decided on July 6, 2021, after the documents were assessed and interviews were conducted with relevant people. He says, “It is seen that the record of expenditure incurred by the assembly on maintenance is not organized. However, as there is no clear basis to suspect embezzlement, we suggested that the assembly manage its records better.”

Pandey, the then member of the accounts committee, who was involved in the investigation into the dispute over vehicle purchase and maintenance, said that both the staff and the office bearers should be held accountable. She says, “We couldn’t even take action on an issue of corruption presented before the accounts committee due to political and economic pressure. This is daylight robbery.”

From the office of the Comptroller General to the Office of the Auditor General, all relevant officials seem to be unaware of this excess in the name of vehicle maintenance. In its 58th annual report, the Auditor General stated that officials should consider the costs related to fuel and maintenance while procuring vehicles. But the report is silent about the expenses being incurred in the name of maintenance. Under Secretary at the Auditor General Office Vaikuntha Adhikari said that if there was no response in the report even though the expenditure was more than that specified in the directive, it was the fault of the auditor. 

Adhikari, also the supervisor in charge of Lumbini on behalf of the Auditor-General said. “If the expenditure has exceeded the limit of the directive, the internal auditor should point out the error,” he said. “I will inquire as to how this happened. “

Different provinces, similar issues

Malpractices related to vehicle maintenance have been rife in other provinces as well. We found an instance where invoices totaling up to Rs 50,000 are being presented for reimbursement. About Rs 340 million has been spent in the name of vehicle maintenance in all seven provinces in a year.

Let’s look at the example of Province-1. Indramani Parajuli, chair of the law and administration committee, tops the list of people making a mockery of the law. He spent Rs 461,760 in the name of vehicle maintenance in the fiscal year 2020/21 alone. In the same year, Sita Thebe Javegu, chairperson of the Industry, Tourism, Forest and Environment Committee, spent Rs 446,864. Pramod Ghatani, information officer of the provincial assembly, argues that it is only natural that the maintenance cost would be higher for vehicles being used by prominent persons and officials.

According to the Provincial Comptroller General’s Office, the provincial government Rs. 80.152 million in 2020/21. The Madhesh government spent Rs 28.1 million, Bagmati Rs. 68.855 million, and Gandaki Rs 47.260 million on vehicle maintenance.

Similarly, Rs 51.37 million was spent in Lumbini, Rs 21.5 million in Karnali, and Rs. 41.299 million in Sudurpaschim.

Comptroller General of the Far Western Province, Basudev Joshi, says that there is no problem in repairing the vehicle as the amount has been paid based on expenses. “As there is no vehicle maintenance guideline in the province, payment has been made based on invoices presented,” he said.

No federal audits

While all this happens in the provinces, how much are the federal government officials spending on vehicle maintenance? There aren’t any records. However, most people in the know say guidelines are now followed. “Up to Rs 60,000 has been spent monthly on the maintenance of one vehicle of the federal government. It has also been found that the same thing is bought every month to increase the bill. This is contagious. Despite warnings, we have failed to control it, ” said an official at the Finance Ministry.

Finance Secretary Madhu Kumar Marasini, said that he was not aware of the huge expenditure incurred in the name of vehicle maintenance. “Such figures are available with the Office of the Auditor-General. If it is not following the rules, then it should be recovered as arrears, ” he said. However, the Office of the Auditor-General does not have time to look into vehicle maintenance costs. Information Officer Krishna Pudasaini says that since each office keeps details according to the branch, it is not possible to say how much is spent. “Because there are so many vehicles, it’s a complex matter to look at how much the maintenance costs are,” he says. 

Advocate Mohan Acharya, director of Justice and Rights Institute (JuRi), Nepal working in the field of good governance, considers this excess of vehicle maintenance as a lack of accountability and good governance. According to him, corruption has increased as there is no monitoring of the work done by the provincial governments. According to Ram Chandra Bhattarai, a citizen leader of Rupendehi and a former member of the National Assembly, there is a growing tendency for those in power to do whatever they want. “Citizen pressure and surveillance must be intensified against this,” he said.

Lal Hari Pandey, vice-chairman of a Butwal-based anti-corruption group, says that it is a crime to spend money in the name of fuel and maintenance as the provincial governments don’t have their internal resources of revenue. Padmini Pradhanang, chairperson of Transparency International Nepal, said the misuse of government property, forging of documents, and claiming of excessive amounts are being treated as normal. They should be punished for corruption, she added.