A subcommittee of the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives will re-study the alleged irregularities in the construction of the Bhairahawa-based Gautam Buddha International Airport after its coordinator, Yogesh Bhattarai of the CPN-UML, decided to recuse himself.

Bhattarai agreed to recuse after Rastriya Swatantra Party lawmaker Manish Jha so demanded, saying the presence of the former civil aviation minister in the committee to probe irregularities in the airport construction leads to a conflict of interest. Jha also objected to the proposal of committee chair Rishikesh Pokharel to appoint Achyut Mainali, a UML lawmaker, as Bhattarai’s replacement.

As a result, the committee agreed to find the coordinator of the sub-panel at its next meeting. “The next meeting will appoint the coordinator while also deciding the deadline for report submission,” said Pokharel. In Sunday’s meeting of the PAC, the UML lawmakers had slammed Jha’s rejection of Mainali as a double standard and populist demand.

They said it was unfair to object to Mainali as the coordinator for one subpanel, while another with Prem Bahadur Ale, also a former aviation minister, was allowed to submit its report. The panel involving Ale found massive corruption in the construction of the Pokhara International Airport.

“How does the conflict of interest apply in one case, and not in the other?” said Gokul Banskota, a UML lawmaker. “How did the committee accept the report of Pokhara airport where [former aviation minister Ale] was a member?”

The panel to study irregularities in Bhairahawa airport has already completed its field study. As per Bhattarai, only the final stage of report writing remains. This is why Pokharel is giving it some time to finalise the report under the new leadership.

However, other lawmakers say there should be further study under the new leadership. “Earlier we were focused on finding out why the airport has not been fully operational with little focus on other irregularities. Now it demands more study focusing on irregularities,” Amresh Kumar Singh, a member of the panel, told the Post. “I cannot say for the construction part, but there has been a huge corruption in land acquisition.”

He claims that a kattha (126.44 square metres) of land with the maximum market price of half million rupees has been bought for eight times the cost, making the project bleed billions of rupees. If his claims are anything to go by, huge money has been in the name of compensation even to acquire the barren lands.

“Roads access has been shown on paper to claim higher compensation for the land which never had any trace of road,” he said. “There is a clear nexus among the major parties to make the project bleed.”

The total cost of the airport construction is $76.1 million, excluding land acquisition. The Asian Development Bank contributed $37 million in loans and grants, while the OPEC (Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) Fund for International Development contributed about $11 million in loans. The rest of the funding came from the government.

The government awarded the contract to upgrade Bhairahawa airport to an international airport to a Chinese company in October 2014. The project was slated to be completed by the end of 2017. After it encountered multiple hurdles, the deadline was extended by four years to December 2021.

The airport is spread over 787 bighas (533 hectares) and has a 3,000-metre-long and 45-metre-wide runway. Though some airlines are making irregular flights, there is no assurance of regular international flights.

The airport faces operational problems also because India has expressed reservations over the opening of the airspace over Bhairahawa and Nepalgunj citing the presence of its defence base in Gorakhpur. Nepal has been pushing the agenda of expanding cross-border air routes with India as there is only a single entry point in Simara for most aircraft flying into the country.

In Sunday’s meeting, ruling party lawmakers including the committee’s chairperson had said it needs to be clear that parliamentary committees are neither judicial nor prosecuting agencies to establish corruption and declare someone corrupt. “Are we a judicial body? Our role is only to alert the government,” said Pokharel.

Expressing his views, Nepali Congress chief whip Shyam Ghimire said that the sub-panel cannot convict anyone of corruption. “I am a member of the team to study Bhairahawa airport. Do we have the expertise to decide how corruption happened only by talking to the airport officials?” he said.

Ruling party lawmakers asserted that parliamentary panels are fact-finding bodies that raise issues of foul play if there are any. “I’m not saying everything raised about Pokhara Airport is wrong. But how do we establish corruption?” said Banskota. “There are authorised bodies to do so.”