Nepal Oil Corporation Land Deals Under CIIA Scanner

August 1, 2017

The Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) is facing a probe for misappropriation of approximately Rs 800 million in multiple land deals worth Rs 1.61 billion. The Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA), which has begun the preliminary investigations, confiscated all the relevant documents from the NOC headquarters.

The process for buying land was initiated by the NOC to build oil storage facilities in all the seven provinces. This followed the government directive on maintaining fuel stock for a three-month period. While the Parliamentary Industry, Commerce and Consumer Welfare Committee (ICCWC) had instructed NOC to construct the storage plants in government-owned land, the latter began dealing with private contractors to buy land plots.

The ICCWC along with a sub-committee of the Parliamentary Finance Committee are probing possible fraud in the land deals.

Shiva Kumar Mandal, the Minister for Supplies said that “We are waiting for the report of the probe panel formed under the parliamentary committees. We will take necessary action if anyone is found guilty.”