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Airport tax being siphoned off

Wednesday - 18th April 2007

A sizeable amount of airport tax collected at Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) from departing international passengers was embezzled by issuing counterfeit receipts, revealed an "in-depth" investigation.
The investigation, launched by the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, has reckoned that airport tax worth Rs 2.3 million was diverted to private accounts between mid-July 2005 and January 2006 using counterfeit receipts. The investigation is ongoing.

The investigation report, a copy of which was obtained by The Kathmandu Post, stated that the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), the official agency to collect the tax, collected Rs 428.4 million during the period, whereas the sum should have been Rs 430.7 million on the basis of the number of passengers who left the country during that period.

CAAN has recently formed a one-man committee of Birendra Bahadur Basnet, a director at the board of CAAN, after Office of Auditor General (OAG) raised questions over the "unnatural decline" in collection of airport tax from TIA since the fiscal year 2002/03.

During the Pandey committee's observation on March 20, it uncovered irregularities in 38 receipts. Of them, nine had same receipt numbers, 27 had no date stamp, and two had odd serial number.

The investigation was confined to just six-months-and-half, as data prior to mid-July 2005 was not available, said Basnet. A report of the OAG last year had revealed that there was a shortfall of Rs 2.77 million in revenue collection in the fiscal year 2002/03, Rs 5.4 million in the year 2003/04, and Rs 4.5 million in the year 2004/05.

Following the OAG report, CAAN started reconciling airport tax receipts on individual flight basis to curb the malpractice. However, irregularities continued, albeit at a decelerated pace, according to the investigation.

CAAN collects over Rs 1.5 million in revenue daily as airport tax from international passengers at TIA.


Source E Kantipur