Valley
Controversial India firm likely winner
The United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) is all set to hand out a Nepal contract to an Indian wing of global consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), whose employees have been booked in India for corporate espionage and whose key client is the Government of India.The United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) is all set to hand out a Nepal contract to an Indian wing of global consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), whose employees have been booked in India for corporate espionage and whose key client is the Government of India.
PwC, a global consultancy firm with subsidiaries in many countries, will have access to confidential Nepal government information, systems and procedures to carry out the deliverables and assist government institutions like the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), Ministry of Finance (MoF) and the Investment Board, according to the terms of reference of the contract the Post has received.
In March 2015, India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had named PwC as a suspect in a corporate espionage case, according a Times of India report. “Investigation has revealed the alleged role of a representative of M/s PricewaterhouseCoopers in obtaining information from the department of economic affairs which is being probed,” the ToI report had quoted an unnamed CBI officer as saying. The controversy was also reported in other major Indian newspapers such as the Hindu and India Today. The documents that were allegedly procured by PwC related to foreign direct investment policies being considered by the Government of India.
A statement emailed by DFID Nepal in response to the Post’s request to explain its position on the contract said that the PwC it would engage with “is not linked to the one referenced in media articles published in March 2015.” DFID also claimed that its objective was to get the “best deal for Nepal”, maximising the competitions. “All bidders, including the eventual successful supplier, were rated according to all of the information available, and DFID stands by these ratings.”
The contract, whose estimated value is up to 6 million pounds (over Rs 963 million), is part of DFID’s larger project ‘Accelerating Investment and Infrastructure (AiiN) in Nepal Programme’ that aims to promote higher level of economic growth by addressing the investment and growth bottlenecks in Nepal. PwC would handle the Financial Sector Stability component Head of DFID in Nepal Gail Marzetti and then finance secretary Suman Prasad Sharma had signed an MoU to implement the project on April 16, 2015.
Though finance ministry officials were not immediately available for comments, an NRB official said that the project was part of DFID’s long-standing support for Nepal. Deputy Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari said that NRB had not been notified about PwC’s selection yet. “As part of the standard practice, NRB signs a non-disclosure agreement with all firms and consultants,” Adhikari told the Post.
DFID did not directly respond to a question on whether it conducts risk assessment in carrying out its assistance to Nepal.
“In each stage of the process, DFID has negotiated to strengthen the terms of the support that will be delivered for the Government of Nepal. Also, following standard DFID practices, we have updated government officials of the process and the outcome,” DFID said in the statement sent to the Post.