Nepal: Public Accounts Committee orders government to recover casino arrears

2012-04-20

Reading time 1:41 min

(Nepal).- Legislature-Parliament, Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has directed the government to recover the arrears immediately. The committee's meeting held at Singha Durbar instructed the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation to recover the arrears from the casinos that have not paid the royalty to the government by giving them more time.

PAC chairman Ram Krishna Yadav said the meeting concluded that the government has done an illegal activity by allowing the operation of 'electronic gaming' throughout the country and also issued directive to the bodies concerned to immediately stop it.

It also directed the government to implement the earlier directive the PAC had issued to the effect that the illegal acts taking place in the name of casino through electronic machines and casinos be stopped. The PAC had concluded at its previous meeting on December 29, 2010 that these activities were operating without formulating the related regulations and guidelines.

The PAC meeting also heard that the Revenue Investigation Department submitted the royalty amount collected from six casinos until December 15, 2011 and that it was yet to submit the royalty amount collected from three casinos.

The casinos that paid the royalty amount to the government are the Everest Casino, Casino Tara, Casino Shangri-la, Casino Grand, Casino Venus and Casino RAD. It is said the Casino Royal is yet to pay us$ 543,850, Casino Nepal us$ 2 million, Casino Fulbari us$ 809,812 and Casino Anna us$ 1.4 million in royalty to the government. Although an amount of us$ 1.3 million has come in the state's coffers as royalty, us$ 4.7 million still remains to be recovered.

At the PAC meeting held this week, the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Tourism and Civil Aviation had briefed the committee members on the works carried out by their ministries.

Finance Minister Barshaman Pun said action should be taken against casinos not paying the arrears and that his ministry was for creating conducive environment for casinos who want to pay the arrears and to regulate those not doing so.

Minister for Tourism and Civil Aviation Lokendra Bistamagar said it was at the initiation of his ministry that us$ 2.2 million royalty could be realised from the casinos. He said the arrears could not be realised from casinos due to the lack of clear-cut policy and regulations and stressed on reforming the regulations.

Lawmaker Dr. Prakash Chandra Lohani of the Rastriya Janashakti Party said the government itself should take the initiatives for regulating the casinos.