The government and the main opposition Nepali Congress have reached an understanding on the terms of reference of the proposed parliamentary probe panel on the cooperatives scam. They came to an agreement during a meeting of the leaders of four major parties on Monday evening.

Though three parties—the Congress, the CPN-UML and the Rastriya Swatantra Party—had agreed to constitute a parliamentary committee on May 18 and formed a task force to draft the panel’s terms of reference (TOR), the task force struggled to finalise the terms due to conflicting stances of the ruling and opposition parties.

Now the Rastriya Prajatantra Party has also come on board. While the party is not represented in the task force, it will have representation in the parliamentary probe committee.

According to the members of the task force, with Monday’s understanding, the government will be able to present the annual budget on Tuesday.

“We have agreed, in principle, on the terms of reference for the parliamentary committee,” said Ramesh Lekhak, chief whip of the Nepali Congress. “The House will also resume Tuesday.”

The understanding comes on the eve of the budget presentation day. Finance Minister Barsha Man Pun will present the annual budget for 2024-25 at a joint session of Parliament on Tuesday afternoon.

The main opposition Congress, which has been obstructing the House to put pressure on the government to form the parliamentary panel, had earlier threatened to obstruct budget presentation on Tuesday if the ruling parties continued to ignore its demand.

“Some details of the TOR will be discussed and agreed on during a meeting tomorrow morning,” Sishir Khanal of the Rastriya Swatantra Party, who represents the party in the task force, told the Post.

Jeevan Pariyar and Gyanendra Bahadur Karki from the Nepali Congress; Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Padam Giri and Mahesh Bartaula of the CPN-UML, and Khanal from the RSP are the members of the task force mandated to chart out the parliamentary committee’s terms of reference.

According to Congress sources, there has been an agreement to form a seven-member parliamentary committee to look into the misuse of funds in several cooperatives including those based in Pokhara, Butwal and Bharatpur (Chitwan).

The Nepali Congress has been accusing Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane of obtaining loans illegally from three cooperatives based on these cities to fund his television channel, Gorkha Media Network, which is now defunct.

“We are very close to an agreement that we will make it public tomorrow,” said Padam Giri, minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs. “A meeting of the task force will sit tomorrow morning and give final touches to the ToR.”

As agreed among the parties, the ToR will specifically mention the names of Surya Darshan Cooperatives of Kaski, Sahara Cooperatives of Chitwan and Supreme Cooperatives of Butwal, all of which have been linked to the home minister Lamichanne but are owned by GB Rai, who used to run the Gorkha Media Network.

“Then we will initiate a probe into the financial embezzlement in these cooperatives and a few others,” said a Nepali Congress leader.

“Home Minister Lamichhane’s name will not be mentioned in the ToR. But the parties have agreed to probe financial embezzlement that took place in the Gorkha Media Network.”

The home minister had reportedly drawn millions of rupees in loans from three cooperatives while he served as the managing director of the Gorkha Media Network.

Parties had agreed to probe crisis-ridden cooperatives, and financial embezzlement in the three cooperatives, but the ruling parties emphatically rejected the opposition’s demand for inclusion of the home minister’s name in the TOR.

Billions of rupees were illegally transferred from several cooperatives to fund the Gorkha Media Network. The funds were syphoned off by GB Rai, who used to run the three cooperatives based in Pokhara, Chitwan and Butwal and ran the now defunct Galaxy 4K television.

“Although no names will be mentioned in the TOR,” said Giri, “if any financial foul play is discovered in the running of the Gorkha Media Network, legal action will be recommended for the culprit.”

According to the Nepali Congress and UML’s leaders, the seven-member task force will initially be given at least three months to complete the investigation, subject to renewal if it cannot complete its task on time.

As per the understanding, two members each from the Congress and the UML and one each from the CPN (Maoist Centre), the Rastriya Swatantra Party and the Rastriya Prajatantra Party will be members of the parliamentary panel.

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal was active throughout Monday in order to find common ground and was busy meeting leaders from both ruling and opposition parties.

In case there was no agreement, the Congress leaders had threatened to obstruct the house and disturb the finance minister’s budget presentation.

It was the Congress that first raised the demand for the formation of the parliamentary committee after Rabi Lamichhane was appointed deputy prime minister and home minister on March 6.