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A senior IFC official is on a three-day visit to Nepal to renew IFC's commitment to support private sector to help meet country’s development goals while discussing investment opportunities.

During her visit, IFC's Vice President for Economics and Private Sector Development, Susan M. Lund, is scheduled to meet senior government officials and private sector leaders.

Nepal is a priority country for IFC, and its first investment dates back to 1975. Since July 2018, IFC has committed over USD 560 million in long-term financing in the country.

Based in Washington DC, Lund leads a large staff of economists who provide economic analysis to support IFC investments, including macroeconomic outlooks, country risk assessments, and country private sector diagnostics.

Prior to joining IFC, Ms. Lund spent over 20 years as a partner at McKinsey & Company and the leader of the McKinsey Global Institute.

Prime Minister and CPN (Maoist Center) Chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal has said that the gold smuggling scandal would be taken to its final conclusion.

He pledged that investigation would be conducted getting to the root of this scam and all the culprits would be brought to book.

The Prime Minister and party chairperson said this while addressing the party office-bearers meeting held at his official residence in Baluwatar today.

He made it clear that the government is firm on taking the gold scam, corruption scandal and irregularities to the final conclusion.

The Department of Revenue Investigation had on July 19 confiscated around 100 kg of gold from Sinamangal. The government is carrying out an investigation in this connection. So far 18 people have been arrested in connection with the gold smuggling scam.

Expressing the commitment to taking the gold scam to its conclusion, PM Dahal said the support and cooperation of all was needed for that.

The PM in the meeting said that the culprits would not be spared while the innocent would not be held, CPN (Maoist Centre) secretary Dinanath Sharma said.

Party Deputy General Secretary Barshaman Pun has called for forming a high-level committee to investigate the gold smuggling scam.

He said all those connected to the scam should be brought under the ambit of investigation and legal action be taken against them.

He said that the propaganda has been spread linking his name as well in this scam with the intention of derailing the campaign against corruption and irregularities that the government has brought by influencing this campaign.

Pun stressed on making successful the campaign against corruption and irregularities pursued by the government.

The Maoist Centre's office-bearers' meeting is being held continuously for determining the agenda of the party's Central Committee meeting scheduled to be held from August 2. Today's meeting was convened in that connection.

Party Chairperson Dahal will be presenting the political and organizational report in the Central Committee meeting.

Discussions were held in the meeting today regarding this topic as well.

Similarly, preparations have been made to render the party's organizational structure more efficient by organizing the Statute Convention in the coming Mangsir (mid-November to mid-December).

Meeting would be live-streamed

According to CPN (Maoist Centre) Secretary Sharma, the Central Committee meeting would be broadcast live.

He said this is being done with the objective of directly providing a glimpse of the meeting's proceedings to the general public and party cadres.

He said unlike before wherein group discussions used to be held, all the Central Committee members would be provided time to air their views this time.

Before this, the Nepali Congress had also live-streamed its Central Committee meeting in the social site.

The meeting of the House of Representatives has been postponed till 1 pm tomorrow.

The meeting called for 1 pm today has been postponed for tomorrow due to a special reason, the Parliament Secretariat said.

It has been learnt that Speaker Devraj Ghimire postponed the meeting at the request of the government after the main opposition CPN-UML said that it would obstruct the meeting today.

The UML has been seeking answers from Home Minister Narayan Kaji Shrestha in the one quantal gold smuggling case.

The UML had planned to seek answers from Home Minister Shrestha in the latest gold smuggling case in today’s meeting.

Earlier this morning, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal and UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli had held talks about removing the House obstruction.

Saying that the Prime Minister did not give a clear answer about the gold smuggling case during the meeting, the UML had said that it would not let the House proceed with its business today.

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal and main opposition CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli held a meeting on Monday.

During the meeting that took place at the Prime Minister's official residence in Baluwatar this morning, the two leaders discussed contemporary political affairs, with a particular emphasis on ending the ongoing House obstructions, according to the Prime Minister's Secretariat.

On Sunday too, senior leaders of three major political parties held a meeting at Baluwatar to discuss contemporary political issues.