PAC to seek medical bills from princess Helen; Wants Dhakal, Rana to pay lakhs

[Angel]

The Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee today decided to seek payment bills from those who had taken “treatment assistance” above Rs 50,000 from the Ministry of Health in the last four years. PAC is investigating the case in which 467 people, including princess Helen Shah, politicians, and a former prime minister were given big amounts as treatment assistance. The ministry had released over Rs 21 million for the purpose.

Only after analysing the payment bills would the committee decide whether the money was misused or released illegally. Health Minister Amik Sherchan and the Minister of Finance, Dr Ram Saran Mahat, in a previous meeting of PAC, had said big sums were released to wrong persons. Sherchan, speaking at an interaction today, said health ministry has begun the groundwork on what action would be taken against the misuse of the treatment fund and to create an appropriate mechanism to ensure that the fund reached right and needy persons. Health Ministry had received 400 applications requesting funds for treatment. “The well-off families have taken tens of millions of rupees. The real applicants had been deprived of the fund,” said Sherchan.

The PAC also decided to direct the authorities concerned to ask the former ministers for information and communication to refund Rs 43 lakh distributed to journalists and media organisations during the Royal regime.

“PAC decided to direct the authorities to take stringent action against the former ministers, who had misused the government’s fund. The authorities will also be asked to make the ministers repay the amount,” said Chitra Bahadur KC, PAC chairman.

Former ministers Tanka Dhakal and Shrish Shumsher Rana had distributed the amount to the journalists and media organisations. The PAC concluded that the fund was misused to “suppress the people’s movement.” The PAC, however, decided that the sum paid for advertisements to media houses as per the ‘one window policy’ need not be refunded. The PAC also decided to study the details of Mid Marsyangdi hydro-power project and has asked for details from the ministry concerned.