KATHMANDU: The Home Minister and the Home Secretary have spent a huge amount of money in the name of intelligence operation, bleeding the sate coffer.
The expenditure on intelligence from the Ministry of Home Affairs on the topic of peace and security management has gone unabated even though the Office of the Auditor General has given instructions every year to stop such opaque expenses.
Former Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa and the outgoing Home Secretary Maheshwar Neupane spent Rs. 14,858,000, according to a report published on Friday. Neupane spent Rs 765.8 million and Thapa Rs 7.2 million. For a decade now, the Auditor General has been instructing the government to make intelligence spending systematic and transparent, but no improvements have taken place, it is also opaque.
Following the procedure passed by the Council of Ministers 28 years ago, the Home Minister and the Home Secretary have been exploiting the treasury in the name of spying for the party and its cadres every year.
The Council of Ministers led by Girija Prasad Koirala had made an arrangement on May 26, 1993 for the Home Minister to spend up to Rs 50,000 and the Home Secretary to spend up to Rs 20,000 for peace and security.
