Rastriya Banijya Bank (RBB) has distributed Rs870 million rupees in bonus to its staffers for the first time in seven years, claiming that it has recovered to cumulative profit.

Although the bank’s balance sheet shows accumulated losses of over Rs4 billion, the bank claimed that its profits accrued over the last seven years had more than made up for the losses as of the fiscal year 2015-16.

The government policy does not allow the state-owned corporations to distribute bonus as long as it is in cumulative loss.

“We distributed the bonus to our 2,700 employees based on eight percent of net profit as per the Bonus Act,” said Kiran Kumar Shrestha, the bank CEO. He said that the decision was made following a Supreme Court decision to allow a profit-making company to distribute bonus and that the company made a cumulative profit.

Shrestha claimed the bank had made Rs740 million in cumulative profit as of last fiscal year, stemming from the accumulation of bonus amount for the last seven years. 

Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC), which has also been seeking to distribute bonus to its staffer, is putting it on hold as the corporation has remained in cumulative losses until recently.