Kathmandu, April 22
Despite being reinstated by the Supreme Court, Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari is unlikely to find peace anytime soon.
Stakeholders have suspected the information leak as one company was found to have received letters of credit for the import of 630 vehicles just four days before the central bank imposed a ban on the import.
Interestingly, the government had accused Governor Adhikari of information leak as it had suspended him. Adhikari, nonetheless, is already back in his office as the Supreme Court issued an interim order in his favour.
“The Ministry of Finance and the NRB were discussing import restrictions for the past month,” a source says, “The central bank preparing to impose the ban and a big business group beginning to import as many as 630 vehicles is not only a coincidence.”
“This can be a strong piece of evidence to prove the information about the central bank’s preparation was leaked.”
Continental Trading International Pvt Ltd, run by Suhrid Ghimire and Purushottam Paudyal, had obtained two letters of credit from Nabil Bank for the import on March 25 and 31. The NRB had imposed the import restriction in the first week of April.
Ghimire and Paudyal have controversial backgrounds as they had been reportedly involved in offshore dealings as revealed by Pandora Papers last year.
