On December 6, two months after being sworn in, Tourism Minister Prem Bahadur Ale issued a proclamation which drew quite a lot of attention. He announced that he had adopted austerity measures in order to save taxpayer money.

Weeks before his speech, he had appointed Ubaraj Adhikari as executive chairman of the Nepal Airlines Corporation, thus continuing the dual executive power system which has plagued the national flag carrier for long. Nepal Airlines currently has two people wedged into the same post—managing director and executive chairman—both with executive roles as defined by the Cabinet.

On October 31, Ale travelled to the World Travel Mart in London. A news website was quick to question his exorbitant travel bill. He had purchased the return ticket for Rs1.23 million, which is nearly 10 times what the other participants going to the same event had paid, the website reported.

“That’s gross abuse of authority. The same return business class ticket was available for Rs475,000,” said an official at the Nepal Tourism Board, requesting anonymity.

The Post has obtained copies of his air ticket bill issued on October 29.

Ale was recommended for the post of minister in the coalition government by CPN (Unified Socialist) Chairman Madhav Kumar Nepal. On October 8, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba named Ale the minister for culture, tourism and civil aviation.

He began his ministerial antics by cutting the domestic services of Nepal Airlines in the eastern region. The flights were moved to the western region where his constituency lies.

He then introduced a shuttle bus service from the domestic terminal at the airport to the main gate, a distance of about 300 metres. It got almost no attention.

In May, when he was the forest and environment minister in the KP Sharma Oli administration, he had gone viral on social media for distributing oxygen cylinders in hospitals in Doti and Kailali districts with his pictures pasted on them.

Before that too, Ale had become an object of ridicule on social media for his speech declaring that “trees give carbon dioxide to humans”.

The minister's stunts would make a long list, but some of them went unnoticed.

Meanwhile, Ale has a new problem in the making under him.

Nepal’s civil aviation body has not been able to pass its annual budget even nearly six months into the new fiscal year as it has not been able to hold a meeting of its board, which the minister chairs. This lapse, officials say, may compound problems such as weaknesses in revenue forecasting and management and project execution.

A delayed annual financial plan also prevents government entities from initiating procurement processes at the start of the fiscal year and making systematic cash release plans. The budget was prepared in mid-July.

Minister Ale heads the authority's five-member board.

Ale has been a busy man, though. As aviation minister, he seems to have developed a new penchant for flying. He has been jetting off on foreign jaunts on a regular basis while officials of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal are awaiting his go-ahead to hold the meeting of the board of directors, which he had promised to convene several times.

“He has skipped the planned board meetings to pass the budget several times,” said a top official at the authority. “We don’t know why.”

Rumours started flying around that Ale wanted a cut from the budget.

“After several rounds of discussion, we were forced to allocate Rs1 billion for a special project. That was for upgrading Dhangadhi airport to an international airport,” said the official. “This decision was taken on Sunday.”

The civil aviation body has revised its annual budget outlay to Rs43.07 billion from the earlier planned Rs41.76 billion.

“He was haggling over the budget. We don’t know why. Maybe due to the upcoming general elections. We are not sure why because airport development takes many years, and he has not been minister for a long time,” said an official at the aviation body engaged in the budget-making process.

Under the new plan, the allocated money will be used to acquire 40 bigha [26.8 hectares] of land for airport expansion. The airport expansion will require over 200 bighas [134 hectares].

“It is beyond belief that the minister is lobbying for the aviation body’s budget in his desperation to construct another international airport in Dhangadhi,” said Rameshore Khanal, a former finance secretary. “This is ridiculous. Half of the fiscal year has gone by, but the tourism minister has still not passed the budget. It’s against good governance.”

Khanal added, "The project itself is controversial because I don’t think an upgrade of the Dhangadhi airport into an international airport is in the government’s policy and plans. The other thing is that the delayed budget will hit development expenditure. Who is accountable for that?”

Ale is also making the rounds of the provincial government to arrange extra resources to fund his airport scheme. On the other hand, the debt-ridden Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal is worried that its capital expenditure this year will be the lowest in history.

Sanjiv Gautam, a former director general of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, told the Post that the best working time for infrastructure development is from September, after the monsoon ends, to December.

“The peak construction season has passed. Now the government is already preparing for the budget for next year but the civil aviation authority's budget has still not been passed. It’s the failure of the minister.”

Ale has forgotten his priority, said Gautam. There are many crucial things to be done in the civil aviation sector.

According to Gautam, the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal cannot allocate a budget for land acquisition. “It’s against its principle. The government funds the acquisition of land for any airport, not the civil aviation authority.”

Ale is not worried about Nepal being included in the bad books of the European Commission for a long time.

“Like his predecessors, Ale too has requested the visiting members of the European Union to remove Nepal from the European Commission's air safety list.

Last month, Minister Ale requested Paola Pampaloni, deputy managing director of the European Union's External Affairs for Asia and the Pacific, to consider removing the ban on Nepali airlines flying into the European Union.

The European Commission put Nepal on its air safety list, banning all carriers certified in Nepal from flying into the EU because of significant safety deficiencies requiring decisive action.

“Requesting will not resolve the issue. We have to show that we have improved,” said Gautam.

In December 2013, the European Commission imposed a blanket ban on all airlines from Nepal from flying into the 28-nation bloc after the September 2012 crash of Sita Air Flight 601 in the Manohara River that killed 19 people, including seven British citizens.

No Nepali airline was flying to the European Union then, but the commission became concerned enough to prevent them from entering the continent after a spate of air crashes in Nepal. Between 2008 and 2012, there were at least two air crashes annually.

The government has been drawing up a plan to split the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal into a regulatory body and service provider for the last 10 years.

The European Commission has been saying that separation is a prerequisite to remove Nepal from the EU air safety list. “Two crucial Civil Aviation Bills for the separation of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal have been languishing at the lower house. Minister Ale is not bothered about passing them,” said a former director general who wished to remain unnamed.

The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) is expected to conduct a full safety audit of Nepal’s aviation sector next April. “All key positions at the civil aviation body are vacant at this critical time,” said the unnamed director general.

The last such assessment by the aviation safety watchdog of the United Nations was done in 2009.

Another worry is about the debt-ridden Nepal Airlines. In late October, the Cabinet under the recommendation of Minister Ale appointed Ubaraj Adhikari as chief of the national flag carrier.

On Tuesday, Adhikari requested Ale for a fresh capital injection to buy at least 18 new planes for the domestic sector. This plan will require around Rs20 billion.

“Buying new planes is good. But has anyone done an assessment of the Chinese planes that have been grounded for months?” a top official at Nepal Airlines said. “There is something cooking here.”

When Ale was a member of the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee, he had raised questions over bringing the Chinese planes and not flying them.

“He is not bothered about resolving the issue,” the official said.

In July, the board of directors of Nepal Airlines Corporation unanimously decided not to fly two types of Chinese aircraft—the 17-seater Y12e and the 56-seater MA60—from July 16 anymore.

China had provided one MA60 and one Y12e worth Rs2.94 billion as gifts in 2014. The other aircraft were bought for Rs3.72 billion with a soft loan provided by China’s EXIM Bank.

“All these shiny new planes are rotten,” said the Nepal Airlines official.

If Nepal Airlines is up to its neck in loans, the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal is faring no better.

The civil aviation body currently owes more than Rs40 billion to the government. It has borrowed Rs22 billion for the Pokhara International Airport, nearly Rs10 billion for upgrading the Gautam Buddha airport to an international airport and another Rs10 billion for upgrading the Tribhuvan International Airport.

Similarly, the authority is signing a loan agreement for another Rs18 billion for the improvement of the Kathmandu airport and construction of Terminal 2 at the Gautam Buddha International Airport.

“The planned new airport in Dhangadhi, without a traffic project and assessment of financial returns, will put the authority in deep trouble,” said Gautam. Dhangadhi airport already has an 1,800-metre-long runway, the second longest runway after Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport.

“The airport can handle cross-border flights, and it can be turned into an international airport quickly without much investment,” said Gautam.

Tourism officials admit that politicians have a tendency to promise to build airports, as they pitch it as a sign of prosperity. “It’s an agenda to win votes. When in power, they come under pressure to fulfil their promise,” said an official at the Tourism Ministry.

“It’s been a long tradition that politicians put pressure to build airports wherever they want, without caring if the construction is financially and technically feasible,” said Khanal.

Nepal has a longstanding record of building airports under political pressure.

According to the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, in the last decade, the construction of nearly a dozen new airports has been initiated at the behest of political party leaders.

Some airports like Kalikot Airport, Khiji Chandeshwari Airport in Okhaldhunga, Sitaleshwara Airport in Lamjung, Simichaur Airport in Gulmi, Sukilumba Airport in Ilam, Sagarmatha Airport in Udayapur, airstrips in Chalnetar of Pyuthan, Rampur of Palpa, Gudel of Solukhumbu and Argha Bhagawati Airport in Arghakhanchi, among others, are either in the phase of construction or have been completed.

The Sagarmatha Airport plan was passed with pressure from the then urban development minister Narayan Khadka. Likewise, the then home minister and deputy prime minister Bamdev Gautam had pressed for the facility in Chalnetaar, Pyuthan.

A feasibility study for the airport in Rampur, Palpa was undertaken during the tenure of the interim election government chairman Khil Raj Regmi.

The then communication minister Gokul Prasad Baskota had lobbied to build an airport in Kavrepalanchok.

In 2016, former tourism secretary Dinesh Kumar Thapaliya had planned to issue tough guidelines for building new airports amid a flurry of new constructions pushed by political party leaders and influential people. But he was subsequently removed from the ministry. The guidelines never came.

A preliminary draft of the guidelines had envisaged that new domestic airports would be constructed after making a proper assessment of their need, geographical location and population that will use the facility, regional balance, tourism prospects, rate of return and proximity to other airports.

Government secretaries chair the board of many public enterprises. At the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, since the minister chairs the board, many airports are built which eventually turn into cow pastures, aviation experts say.

And with the general elections coming up next year, like many politicians, Ale is doing the same to win votes, experts say.

“In the case of Ale, this reflects the level of his incompetence,” said Khanal, the former finance secretary. “Everything he is doing appears to be a scandal.”