CIAA nets 10 more NEA employees including director

The anti-graft body has today arrested some 10 Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) employees, including director Arjun Bahadur Chauhan, deputy director Mahesh Kumar Karki, former managing director Yugal Kishor Shah and engineers and managers as they were involved in the process of recommending, inspecting, approving and releasing payment while purchasing sub-standard transformers.

“All the arrested have been sent to custody,” according to CIAA spokesperson Shreedhar Sapkota.

Likewise, suppliers – a Chinese and a Thai companies – are also under CIAA radar in the multi-billion rupees sub-standard transformer purchase scam.

The Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) is also investigating some of the former and incumbent NEA officials.

Due to CIAA action, the state power utility is going to face a manpower crunch as most of the NEA officials are under the custody.

Earlier, the CIAA had arrested 11 officials and three suppliers on August 4 and 10 NEA officials on August 20. It has also filed two separate charge sheets against the accused at the Special Court on August 23.

A three-member internal probe committee formed earlier by NEA had revealed that around 1,275 transformers purchased from Hubei Sunlight Electric of China were of sub-standard, as the transformer had aluminum wires instead of copper wires.