Submit your Article

What does a quintal of gold making it through an international airport indicate? 

A security breach of titanic proportions. 

On July 19, the illegal gold concealed inside brake shoes ‘imported’ from Hong Kong in the name of Ready Traders passed through the Tribhuvan International Airport customs as security arrangements failed.  

But a team from the Revenue Investigation Department managed to intercept and seize the consignment from Sinamangal, a stone’s throw from the TIA. 

An ongoing investigation into this audacious breach has thus far brought 16 suspects under its dragnet. Public perception is that those arrested are but some small fries and that the big fish are beyond the reach of the long arm of the law.

The citizenry has reasons to be skeptical vis-à-vis the illegal gold probe, given that investigations into previous cases of gold smuggling, the Bhutanese refugee scam and the Lalita Niwas land-grab have failed to make progress beyond a point.

Frustrated with endemic corruption, political instability and the lack of rule of law as well as good governance, the citizenry has already started speculating reasons behind this inertia at a time when a deeper feeling that the high and the mighty can get away with anything is taking root in the country.

Like previous mind-boggling TIA breaches, the quintal-heavy breach has given rise to more questions than answers.

How did the cargo evade air-tight security at Hong Kong? What exactly went wrong with the screening system at the TIA that day, and how? How many times has the system gone ‘haywire’ in recent days? What amount of such illegal cargo has already made it through?   

Is the notorious ‘setting’—a prevalent collusion between the elements of bureaucracy, politics and powerful business interests—also behind this breach?

Was a falling out within the setting behind the confiscation of the cargo?

What was the end destination of the illegal cargo?

The nature of the entire operation indicates that it’s a transnational crime as the flight carrying the cargo had originated in Hong Kong. Apparently, a country that barely requires 40 kg of gold daily does not need a quintal of gold.

While the public can only speculate, the government has the wherewithal to get to the root of the case and book the guilty by working closely with transnational and international law enforcement agencies, if need be.

What directions this and other cases take will depend on one thing: The political will on the part of the government.

If the government is really serious about restoring faith in the current political system, it should be able to unravel the quintal-heavy case and other high-profile cases, come hell or high water, given that the cost of its failure will be too high for the country and the people.

Millions of people heading abroad for employment should alarm a government worth its name.

If they do not, that is an indication that something is seriously wrong, not just with the government but with the entire state.

Facts first. Government data themselves show that about 5m people have opted for foreign employment in the course of 30 years. Many of these people land dirty, difficult and dangerous jobs, meaning death at work is pretty high. Data show that around 12,000 Nepali migrant workers have lost their lives abroad in the past 15 years alone. Despite these alarming figures, youth outmigration continues unabated. So much so, reports indicate that Nepali youths are even falling prey to non-state actors recruiting for the Ukraine war.

Perhaps the government does not bother much about this draining of the youth because it gets a huge amount in remittance every year. So much so, it seems bent on sending young professionals like nurses abroad without any regard for a public health system on sickbed.  Yearly remittance figures stood at $8.11bn, $8.23bn and a whopping $9.29bn from 2020 to 2022. Who would want to lose such a sum in these hard times? 

But these tall figures hide incalculable losses resulting from outmigration. Youths leaving in increasing numbers means no population dividend for a country lagging far behind in comparison to other countries in the neighborhood in terms of development and prosperity. It means tearing the very fabric of the Nepali society asunder. 

This is not to mean that one should not go abroad, in this day and age of interconnectivity, for acquiring new skills, technologies, getting a good education and landing a job, etc. But the focus of the state should be on the creation of a conducive environment to bring these people back and tap their newfound technical skills, knowledge, expertise and experience for the betterment of respective families, societies and the country.

The onus to stop this drain is not on the government alone, though. In particular, people of productive age groups have a tendency to see greener pastures abroad and this is also a reason behind outmigration. These people should not forget that Nepal is a job market for millions of people from across the border. Why are the youths themselves not getting gainful employment in their own country? Is it because they constitute a cream of the cream lot for whom suitable jobs are not available in a low-tech Nepal? Is it because of a mindset that regards certain jobs available in Nepal as inferior? What is the major reason behind thousands of hectares of farmlands lying barren for years, if not this mindset?

Whatever the reason(s), stakeholders, including the government, political parties, their youth wings and community leaders should hold discussions and work out ways to stop this sapping of national energies before it’s too late.

Cooperatives are not in the pink of financial health, again. A high-interest, low-risk business model floated to prospective depositors to draw their hard-earned savings has holes in it as it became clear during the first wave of the cooperatives crisis prominently featuring the Oriental Cooperatives et al.

It will be contextual here to mention Oriental for a number of reasons. First, it was the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic that capsized in the roiling waters of largely unregulated financing in 2013 amidst a housing crisis with deposits worth billions of rupees, belonging, by and large, to members of the general public. Secondly, per rumors mills spinning at that time, that firm had some very powerful leaders of equally powerful parties behind it. The claims that they had their not-so-well-gotten money stashed in that firm’s vaults may not be entirely untrue as none of the accused has bothered to come clean on a serious allegation like this.

Also, as it became evident that the firm was on the verge of collapse, one formidably powerful politician managed to withdraw his fortunes real quick, while thousands of other depositors had no such access. At that time, several other cooperatives went the Oriental way, with hard-earned money belonging to thousands of individuals. This crisis has caused untold miseries to the depositors and their heartbreaking sagas are yet to be written.  

The collapse of the cooperatives one after the other points at a serious systemic ill: The lack of a government regulator and the culture of impunity.  

Shockingly, a section of the ‘authorities concerned’ washes its hands of these firms. It believes that these firms lie in a gray zone. Their line of argument is that neither the firms fall under the direct jurisdiction of the Central Bank nor that of the Department of Cooperatives.

With friends in high places, it is but natural for them to have scant regard for commoners’ hard-earned savings. This hands-off attitude is also to blame for the cooperative crisis. 

What’s more, there’s a tendency to take the firms as a laundromat of sorts, used to turn black money into white. If such is the case, why can’t the government conduct a probe, prosecute the guilty and cleanse the whole damn system? Is it easier said than done or will it boomerang?  

Driven perhaps by this mindset, the government has done precious little (or has it?) to rein in these firms even after the sinking of the ‘Titanic’ and other vessels in the choppy waters of unregulated financing with billions of rupees belonging to not-so-powerful depositors. 

Even after robbing the depositors of their small fortune, those involved in the multibillion rupee scam are going scot-free, making a mockery of the government. The onus is on the government to end this culture of impunity for this serious white-collar crime and see to it that the depositors get their life’s savings back.

Who would not want their very own plot close by the Prime Minister’s Official Residence at Baluwatar, all for free? If wishes were horses, beggars would ride them, wouldn’t they? Close by the famous address lies swathes of land—government-owned land called Lalita Niwas. How could this prime property not have drawn the attention of the all-powerful land mafia? Well, it did. Pretty soon, a nexus developed around some powerful politicians, wily bureaucrats and equally powerful business interests. Pretty soon, new ‘private owners’ of the government property emerged. As they say, with a little help from friends in high places, nothing is impossible, right? But the plot does not end there. A widening police probe, launched a couple years ago, has brought some powerful figures from politics, bureaucracy and the business community under its dragnet. Out of the seven people arrested in a recent swoop, former Joint Secretary Kaladhar Deuja, former Under-secretary Hupendramani KC, and Surendra Kapali were released within a few hours of their arrest after a Supreme Court interim order instructed the authorities to probe the individuals by keeping them out of custody. Former Commissioner of the Election Commission Sudhir Kumar Shah, Director of Bhatbhateni Supermarket Min Bahadur Gurung, Dharma Prasad Gautam, and Gopal Karki remain in police custody as part of the investigation that has already netted a former deputy prime minister, two former land reforms ministers and three government secretaries. As the investigation into the infamous land-grab continues, a couple of questions arise. How could the government leadership of the time not have known what was going on under its very powerful nose? What will happen to this high-profile scam? Will politicization of crime and criminalization of politics, going on unabated in this country, scuttle the probe, much to the relief of more high-profile figures at the cost of the people’s right to know uncensored truth? Questions like these naturally arise because the investigation into another high-profile scam—the Bhutanese refugee scam—has raised similar uncomfortable questions. The government should be mindful that thorough probes into high-profile scams and action against those found guilty are necessary to cleanse the governance system and restore people’s faith in it. It should not forget that half-hearted probes will not serve the purpose. Chances are that they may be seen as attempts to settle old scores. Therefore, the onus is on the government to prove that it has no other motive behind these probes than bringing out the truth. The sooner the government realizes that the public deserve the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, the better.