Friday 26th April 2024
In a move boosting infrastructure development in the country, the Government of Nepal has decided to ease the implementation structure for projects above NPR 50 billion!
The government announced its plans to bring a new law that would bypass public procurement process and allot projects to developers through direct negotiations.
According to the law drafted by PMO, the government will decide on developers for such national priority projects in the aforementioned price range, which is drawing huge criticism around.
The draft bill for national priority projects allows the government to decide on developers without competitive bidding only under three conditions.
PMO officials confirmed that they are preparing the draft, however, declined to comment on the contents of it.
“At present, we are drafting the bill after receiving the Cabinet’s consent. We are yet to finalize entire provisions of the bill, so it is not appropriate to comment on its content,” says PMO Secretary Ramesh Dhakal.
Oli Government is considering the new law considering the delays associated with the global bidding process.
Experts disagree with the government’s decision saying that the new law would give more scope to corruption practices. They however agree with the need to bring in a separate act to govern the national priority projects.
“The law should be introduced after including provisions that can address the existing bottlenecks that have plagued the development of priority projects instead of including provisions that could promote corruption,” says National Planning Commission (NPC) former Chairman Swarnim Wagle.
“Instead of addressing these issues, the government’s bill if endorsed with the aforementioned provisions would promote corruption on a grand scale,” Wagle adds.
