KATHMANDU: CPN-UML Vice Chairman and former Finance Minister Surendra Pandey has hoped that Nepal will not see a situation in which Finance Minister Janardan Sharma will have to flee the country.
Speaking at a press conference held by UML’s publicity department on Sunday, he said the act of the Finance Minister writing to the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) to release certain foreign currency being brought to Nepal was illegal.
Also a former Finance Minister, Pandey said he heard that the Finance Minister had instructed to release the money while the NRB was investigating the foreign money entering the country.
Pandey said, “When an investigating officer is asked to release a certain amount of money and block some other while the probe is underway, the investigating agency cannot function properly. Doing so is a kind of crime.”
He further said, “What I am hearing is that the Finance Minister of Sri Lanka is set to flee the country, I hope Nepal would not witness such a day.”
He added that if investigating agencies were strong in Nepal, Finance Minister Sharma would have been brought under the jurisdiction of money laundering.
“Can a certain Minister act beyond international obligations? Can someone evade the laws and regulations in place?” he wondered.
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