Over a week after its formation, the parliamentary committee to investigate the misuse of public funds by various cooperatives has started drafting its working procedure necessary to commence the probe.

The first meeting of the parliamentary panel on Wednesday tasked the officials of the Parliament Secretariat deputed to the committee with drafting the working procedure by Thursday.

“Our meeting on Friday will endorse the working procedure after reviewing the draft by the officials,” Ishwari Neupane, a member of the committee from the Nepali Congress, told the Post. “We will probably start the investigation from Sunday.”

After weeks of negotiations between the ruling and opposition parties, a seven-member committee led by CPN-UML lawmaker Surya Thapa was constituted on May 28 to investigate the embezzlement of deposits in dozens of cooperatives around the country.

Sarita Bhusal of the UML, Neupane and Badri Pandey of the Congress, Lekhnath Dahal of the CPN (Maoist Centre), Shishir Khanal of the Rastriya Swatantra Party and Dhruba Bahadur Pradhan of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party are the members of the committee.

It took over a week since the committee was formed for its first meeting as Thapa was in his home district Pyuthan for some days. Talking to the journalists after the meeting, Thapa said they are committed to completing the investigation within the three-month deadline. “We will work day and night to complete our job within the deadline,” Thapa said.

The officials will prepare the working procedure within the framework finalised by the task force led by Padam Giri, minister for law, justice and parliamentary affairs.

The Giri-led panel had agreed on four terms of reference (ToR) for the probe committee.

As per the ToR, the committee will investigate cooperatives facing crisis, their legal and institutional purposes, financial systems, regulations, supervision, and transparency, and make recommendations to the government.

Another task is to recommend measures for the immediate return of savings to the depositors of the crisis-ridden cooperatives identified by the Department of Cooperatives and the Crisis-ridden Cooperatives Management Committee. The parliamentary panel has also been mandated to study and analyse the progress of the savings protection and return by the crisis-ridden cooperatives.

The Department of Cooperatives has listed 20 cooperatives as crisis-ridden, with billions of depositors’ money at risk.

Another task the Thapa-led committee needs to accomplish is tracking the condition of funds from problematic cooperatives. The funds include those allegedly transferred to the Gorkha Media Network, which operated the now-shuttered Galaxy 4K television once managed by Rabi Lamichhane, the deputy prime minister and home minister in the coalition government, and other companies and organisations.

It will also investigate the legality of such transfers, investigate anyone involved in the illegal transfer of funds, and make recommendations for recovering the funds.

According to police investigations, billions of rupees from several cooperatives were transferred to the GB Rai-led Gorkha Media Network. He has fled the country, and Interpol has issued a diffusion notice against him.

The committee is tasked with investigating credit cooperatives whose deposits were transferred to run the Gorkha Media Network and other organisations.

Cooperatives that injected money into Gorkha Media Network are Ideal Yamuna Multipurpose Cooperative, Image Saving and Credit Cooperative, Sahara Saving and Cooperative, Samanata Saving and Credit Cooperative, Sano Paila Saving and Credit Cooperative, Supreme Saving and Credit Cooperative, Suryadarshan Saving and Credit Cooperative, Sumeru Saving and Credit Cooperative and Swarnalaxmi Saving and Credit Cooperative.

It took weeks for the parties to agree on the ToR for the committee as they were sharply divided on whether to name Lamichhane, who has been accused of illegally channelling money from three cooperatives to the media company he jointly led with Rai. The Congress agreed not to name Lamichhane after all the cooperatives linked with the Gorkha Media Network were subjected to probe.