The Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Wednesday asked the Public Procurement Monitoring Office to present a detailed report showing whether the procurement process followed by Nepal Airlines to buy two Airbus A330 jets was legal or not.

The Public Procurement Monitoring Office has been given seven days to submit the information. The House committee’s move follows the auditor general’s report that the national flag carrier breached its financial bylaws during the procurement.

Nepal Airlines purchased two A330-200 Airbus aircraft from US-based AAR Corp for $209.6 million in June. The purchase deal is the first in 30 years and the largest ever in Nepal’s aviation history.

Ram Chandra Sharma, director of the Public Procurement Monitoring Office, told lawmakers that the new procurement law gives Nepal Airlines the option to procure planes directly from the manufacturer or other companies. “But it has to prepare a guideline if it wants to buy aircraft directly. The new public procurement law does not say that planes should be procured only from the manufacturer.”

Nepal Airlines chose Airbus aircraft as it plans to have an all-Airbus fleet in the near future.

Madhu Prasad Regmi, secretary of the Public Procurement Monitoring Office, said that Nepal Airlines seems to have followed the procurement process. “But it is confusing why the carrier ordered planes with 1,000 hours on them and bought brand new ones. This is something for Parliamentary probe bodies like PAC to investigate.”

Regmi said that his office had not monitored the public procurement proceedings of Nepal Airlines on the A330 purchase, and told lawmakers that they would check closely whether the national flag carrier had followed legal proceeding or not.

Auditor General Tankama- ni Sharma had told PAC in September that Nepal Airlines was required to invite proposals only from manufacturers to buy new aircraft as per Clause 236 (1) of its financial bylaw, but it went with Clause 236 (2) which allows it to procure old aircraft from a leasing agency, banker or airline besides the manufacturer.

The Tourism Ministry told PAC last Sunday that the jet purchase deal was transparent and due process had been followed. Lawmaker Hridayesh Tripathi said the Public Procurement Monitoring Office’s statement had further confused PAC. “So we want the procurement office to do a detailed study of the procurement process.”

The first of the two wide-body aircraft—Annapurna—arrived at Tribhuvan International Airport in June, 2018. The second, named Makalu, was delivered a month later. During PAC’s meeting on Sunday, most of the lawmakers asked it to take immediate action against the parties involved as they suspect ‘massive’ financial irregularities totalling more than Rs6 billion.

Flights to be affected on Thursday, Sunday

Air traffic movement is expected to be significantly affected on Thursday and Sunday due to the arrival and departure of VVIPs during the Asia Pacific Summit to be held in Kathmandu on Friday. The VVIPs will return on Sunday.

Pratap Babu Tiwari, spokesperson of Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA), said that they have issued a notice to airmen (NOTAM)—a notice to alert aircraft pilots and airlines operators, that flight movement would be affected from 10:40 am to 11:15 am and 12:10pm to 12:45pm on Thursday.

Similarly, flights will be affected from 8:30am to 9:05am and 10:30am to 11:05am on Sunday. The September-November period is the peak tourist season. According to TIA, as many as 400 domestic flights and 100 international flights take place daily during this period. Of the total flights, 75 percent are domestic.