After a weeks-long exercise, the four major political parties—the Nepali Congress, the CPN-UML, the CPN (Maoist Centre), and the Rastriya Swatantra Party—on Tuesday agreed on the terms of reference (ToR) for the proposed parliamentary special probe panel on the cooperative scam.

The five political parties, including the Rastriya Prajatantra Party, have sent the names of the members to be represented in the parliamentary probe committee.

According to a Nepali Congress leader, Surya Thapa of the UML will lead the committee, and Sarita Bhusal of the party will serve as a member.

Likewise, Badri Pandey and Ishwari Neupane of the Nepali Congress, Lekhntah Dahal from the Maoist Centre, Shishir Khanal of the RSP, and Dhurbha Bahadur Pradhan of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party are other members of the parliamentary probe committee. The tenure of the special probe committee will be three months from the start of its work. The term will be extended if the panel is unable to complete the work in that time.

Earlier, the four-member task force led by Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Padam Giri agreed on a four-point ToR for the probe committee. The task force members handed over the ToR document to Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal. With this, the nearly two-months- long parliamentary impasse ended on Tuesday, allowing the government to present the government’s annual budget.

In the afternoon, Finance Minister Barsha Man Pun presented the budget for the fiscal year 2024-25 at the joint session of Parliament.

As per the agreement, the panel will conduct investigation and make recommendations on the resolving legal and institutional issues faced by cooperatives and on regulations, institutional purpose, supervision and transparency of their financial systems.

Despite the demand of the Congress, the name of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs Rabi Lamichhane, who has been accused of illegally obtaining loans from three cooperatives based in Butwal, Chitwan, and Pokhara, has not been mentioned in the ToR of the parliamentary committee. However, the cooperatives from which Lamichhne had borrowed money will be investigated.

The first clause under the jurisdiction of the parliamentary committee states that the committee will look into cooperatives facing crisis, their legal and institutional purposes, financial systems, regulations, supervision, and transparency, and will make recommendations to the government. Similarly, the committee will study and recommend quick ways to return existing and misused savings.

Another task is to make recommendations for 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 process on those crisis-ridden cooperatives identified in annex 1 and annex 2 of the ToR.

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

The fourth clause on the jurisdiction of the committee states that it will track the condition of funds from crisis-ridden cooperatives, including those allegedly transferred to the Gorkha Media Network and other companies and organisations. It will also look into the legality of such transfers, investigate anyone involved in illegal transfer of funds, and make recommendations to recover the funds.

As per police investigation, billions of rupees from several cooperatives were transferred to GB Rai’s Gorkha Media Network. He has fled the country and Interpol has issued a red notice against him.

As listed on annex 2 of the ToR, nine credit cooperatives, whose deposits were transferred to run the Gorkha Media Network and other organisations, come under the purview of the investigation committee.

Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Padam Giri coordinated the task force whose members were Jeevan Pariyar and Gyanendra Bahadur Kariki from the Nepali Congress; Mahesh Bartuala from UML; Sishir Khanal of the Rastriya Swatantra Party and Hitraj Pandey of the CPN (Maoist Centre).

After an agreement between the parties on Monday evening, the meeting of the task force held on Tuesday finalised the ToR.