Record-breaking Janakpur city reps ‘eat’ 803kg meat in two days

It has to be the most brazen incident of corruption by a local government. In its financial details for the fiscal year 2020/21 presented to the Office of the Auditor General (OAG), Janakpur Sub-metropolitan City presented a ridiculous bill of Rs 710,000 for feeding 803kg meat to the local representative during its two-day city council meeting.

The breakdown of the expenses is thus: the meeting participants consumed 653 kg of mutton worth Rs 653,000 and 150 kg of chicken worth Rs 57,000. There is no mention of how many people attended the two-day extravaganza; there must have been a lot, one can imagine, since the cooking staff were paid a handsome Rs 125,000 for their trouble.  

The meeting was reportedly televised live as well and for this, Janaki TV had charged Rs 15,000.

Then there was the expense incurred while buying ceremonial shawls (360 units of them) for the meeting participants that ate Rs 142,000 from the event’s budget. The local government of Janakpur also seemed to have spent generously (upward of Rs 700,000) to ply the meeting attendees with snacks and cold drinks.  

The sub-metropolis had allocated Rs 5m for the event of which Rs 4.38m was spent, according to the financial details.

This is just one instance of apparent financial misappropriation committed the local representatives of Janakpur city. The annual OAG report is chock full of expense details that do not add up.

The city has presented a bill of Rs 2.3m under the heading of mosquito control program. If you ask Janakpur residents, they only remember the city workers fogging the streets and neighborhoods a couple of times. The city had allocated Rs 4m for mosquito control.

Sudarshan Singh, former chair of one of the city wards, blames former mayor Lalkishor Sah for all the financial discrepancies. He says Sah and his people “were never transparent on how the city was spending its budget”. Millions of rupees were spent during the inaugural session of the city council meeting alone but no one knows the exact figure.

Former mayor Sah is also accused of wasting the city’s budget to publish a book about cultural heritages of Janakpur.  Rs 483,000 were released for the publication of 528 units of the said book. Many were miffed when the book came out for its inferior quality. Worse still, it had the name of Sah’s son emblazoned on its cover.

Incumbent Janakpur Mayor Manoj Kumar Sah agrees his predecessor had not been transparent in city’s expenses while vowing to “play by the rules, be transparent and cut back unnecessary spending”.