KESHAV ADHIKARI

DHADING: Hundreds of thousands of rupees given by donor agencies to uplift the living standards of Chepang people, one of Nepal’s most disadvantaged and marginalised indigenous groups, have been embezzled by Nepal Chepang Sangh, an organisation established to support the backward community.

The Enabling State Programme under the UK government’s Department For International Development has recently moved the Social Welfare Council Nepal and concerned district administration offices after finding that funds meant for the Chepang people were misappropriated by the Sangh.

According to sources at ESP/DFID, it had provided grants to Nepal Chepang Sangh under the project — Political Empowerment for Mainstreaming the Highly Marginalised Indigenous Nationalities in the Inclusive Development Process — implemented in Chitwan, Tanahun, Makawanpur, Gorkha and Dhading districts in 2012.

Earlier, after the confirmation that the funds were misused, the ESP had written to the Lalitpur District Administration Office on June 5, seeking action against the concerned body that had embezzled the money.

Nepal Chepang Sangh is registered with Lalitpur District Administration as a non-governmental organisation as per the Organisation Registration Act 2034. The Sangh also faces charge of shifting its office to Chitwan from Lalitpur without informing the concerned bodies.

An ESP letter submitted to the Lalitpur DAO states that the Sangh, which was supposed to spend funds for skill-oriented trainings, has been found to have forged documents and misused the money without implementing any such programmes.

Lalitpur DAO had then ordered an audit of the balance sheet of the Sangh and directed it to pay back Rs 9.38 lakhs — unaccounted for and misused in the first five months since the project started in October 2012. The ESP has suspended the project for the time being.

NCS Chairman Jitendra Chepang admitted that the ESP-provided funds were spent ‘under different headings’. “We spent money to construct a building for Sangh’s central office in Shaktikhor of Chitwan,” Chepang said.

The ESP had earlier directed the Sangh to return all the money that was spent on other headings than they were agreed upon by January 15. After the Sangh defaulted, the ESP wrote to the SWC and district administration and district development offices of Lalitpur, Makawanpur, Chitwan, Gorkha, Tanahun and Dhading, seeking action against the Sangh.

Chepang told The Himalayan Times that his association could not return the money due to fund crunch.

ESP team leader Phadindra Adhikari had filed a case at the Lalitpur DAO saying that the Sangh had so far returned only Rs 60,500 and had sought DAO’s intervention to help reimburse the remaining Rs 8.87 lakhs.

(source by -www.thehimalayantimes.com)