A Special Court on February 28 convicted former Minister for Women, Children and Senior Citizens Badri Prasad Neupane and sitting member of Parliament Tek Bahadur Gurung, among others, on charges of corruption in the leasing of government land to the Kathmandu Fun Park at the Capital’s Bhrikutimandap.

The 60th Annual Report of the Office of the Auditor General released on Thursday has also exposed the irregularities when the council was headed by a minister of the Cabinet headed by then king Gyanendra Shah.

Ex-King Shah had staged a coup against Sher Bahadur Deuba-led government on February 1, 2005, taken over the executive and headed the next government himself.

The former king had appointed Durga Shrestha as minister for Women, Children and Social Welfare. She headed the ministry from February 2, 2005 to December 7, 2005. As a minister, she was the chairperson of the council as per the Social Welfare Act 1992.

On March 30, 2005, the council awarded the lease of the land to the Kathmandu Fun Park at a reduced rent. The monthly rent was set at Rs220,400, a sharp drop from Rs475,000 a month under the earlier contract signed five years before, on December 11, 2000.

Durga Prasad Bhattarai, the acting director at the council, said that contracts on both occasions were awarded to Rabindra Gurung, the chief operator of Kathmandu Fun Park. “On both occasions, the contract was awarded to Gurung through competitive bidding,” Bhattarai said. “But when the contract was awarded the second time at a reduced rate—that was suspicious.”

Gurung, the operator of the theme park, has continued to get contract extensions in the following years. Ex-Minister Neupane was embroiled in a corruption scandal when a new contract was issued to Gurung for Rs550,00 per month without competitive bidding.

The board of the council headed by the then minister Neupane on July 30, 2012 had decided to lease the land without competitive bidding, resulting in a loss of Rs315.21 million for the council, according to a chargesheet registered by the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) at the Special Court on February 4, 2019.

Neupane was representing the Chure Bhawar Ekta Party, which later merged with the then CPN-UML.

Gurung, the park operator, who also has been convicted in a corruption case, is still operating the Fun Park which sprawls over 60 ropani [1 ropani is 5476 sq ft] of land. “He has been paying over Rs600,000 per month after an annual rise in rent,” said Bhattarai.

After the CIAA charged 14 individuals including ex-minister Neuapne as well as the Kathmandu Fun Park operator Gurung, the council had issued an eviction order in the name of Gurung to vacate the place.

But Gurung filed a case at the Kathmandu District Court challenging the order, demanding that he should be allowed to use the land until the lease period, and he managed to secure a stay order from the district court in June 2019. The council filed an appeal at the Patan High Court, challenging the stay order.

“The High Court issued a verdict against our eviction order,” said Bhattarai. For comparison, the council has been raising Rs1.4 billion a month from the vegetable market, which is located on the other side of the road across the Bhrikutimandap fairground. The vegetable market covers just eight ropani of land.

Not only in the case of the Fun Park, the office bearers of the council also rented out 25 ropani land adjacent to the Kathmandu Fun Park to a youth club at a reduced rate, according to the report of the constitutional auditing body. Another children's park is being operated on the land.

On December 22, 1996 the land was rented to a youth club named Lyamha Puchha for 10 years at Rs10,000 per year in the first year with annual rent rise of Rs10,000 every following year.

But, on June 2, 1997, the contract was modified by keeping the monthly rent at Rs5,000 per month, subject to annual rise in rent by five percent. The contract was signed for another 25 years with this rent rate.

“Had the first contract prevailed till December 21, 2021, the council would have received as much as Rs11.28 million,” the auditing body said. “Under the second contract, the council could only earn Rs2.92 million.”

After the contract with Lyamha Puchha expired, the council awarded it to another private firm to run the children’s park.

“Now Amatya Enterprises has been awarded the contract through a competitive bidding process, which pays Rs1.7 million a month,” said Bhattarai.