KATHMANDU: The government is planning to select a new Managing Director (MD) at Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) through an open competition.

According to Surya Thapa, Press Adviser to Prime Minister KP Oli, the new Managing Director will be selected through open competition as per the law after Kulman Ghising left office on Tuesday after completing his four-year term.

“There is a definite legal process for appointment. Accordingly, the new Managing Director will be appointed. Kulman has also come through the same process before,” Thapa said, “The same arrangement is being implemented now.”

Ghising has told the political leadership that he will not participate in the open competition.

In the evaluation of the performance agreement done by the Ministry of Energy, Kulman scored 88.19 percent in FY 2016/17, 87.98 percent in FY 17/18, 86.82 percent in FY 18/19 and 87.55 percent in FY 2019/20.

Ghising was appointed to the post in 2016 when Pushpa Kamal Dahal was the prime minister.

Speaking at a farewell function organized at NEA on Tuesday, Ghising said that the financial condition of NEA, which was in a very critical condition, had improved during his tenure.

The accumulated deficit had reached Rs 34.61 billion when Ghising took charge of the NEA. In the same year alone, the NEA had incurred a loss of Rs 8.89 billion.

“NEA has managed to make a glorious history by becoming the most profitable public sector enterprise in the last two years,” said Ghising.

NEA had earned a net profit of Rs 1.47 billion in the first fiscal year.

NEA, which has a monopoly on power generation, transmission and distribution, has estimated that the profit will be more than Rs 11 billion this fiscal year as well.

It has made a profit of Rs 2.85 billion in the second year, Rs 9.81 billion in the third year and Rs 11.05 billion in the fourth year.