The House of Representatives has been paralysed for two weeks now as ruling and opposition parties continue to spar over the ‘visit visa’ scam.
After talks between ruling and opposition parties on Monday also failed to break the deadlock, the next meeting of the lower house has been rescheduled for Wednesday at 1 pm. The House meeting on Monday was adjourned for half an hour without entering the agenda due to obstruction by the opposition. As no consensus could be reached among the political parties, Parliament secretariat posted a notice stating that the session has been postponed until Wednesday afternoon.
As reported in mainstream and social media, the network involved in the scam has links to the private secretariat of Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak, who continues to defend himself.
The visit visa scandal involves senior officials close to Home Minister Lekhak, including members of his secretariat. As a result, some leaders in his Nepali Congress party as well as some opposition leaders have demanded his resignation.
Besides the CIAA, the Prime Minister’s Office also took exception to the incident and instructed Home Secretary Gokarna Mani Duwadi to provide details and the numbers of civil servants and staff posted at TIA immigration.
The CIAA found that more staff were deployed at the TIA immigration office than the number of sanctioned posts. As per instructions from the CIAA, the Prime Minister’s Office wrote to the home secretary seeking clarification, said an official at the Prime Minister’s Office.
It was after the CIAA summoned joint secretary Bhattarai that the visit visa scam was exposed. Opposition parties have been obstructing the House proceedings since May 27, demanding the resignation of Lekhak, and formation of a high-level investigation committee on the scandal.