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NEW DELHI (TrustLaw) - Nepal plans to crack down on officials linked to allegations of corruption in the procurement of military hardware, after the United Nations discovered Nepali peacekeepers in Sudan had sub-standard equipment, officials said.
Nepal has 140 police officers serving as part of the 22,000-strong United Nations-African Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) – deployed to stem years of violence in western Sudan between government forces and rebels.
Shankar Pokharel, Nepal's information minister, said a government probe last month found that up to 300 million rupees (about $4 million) had been embezzled during the procurement of armoured vehicles to supply to Nepali blue helmets in Darfur.
"The investigation found that the armoured personnel carriers (APCs) bought in 2009 were poor quality and had parts missing and were also quite old. They were bought at much cheaper prices and the remaining funds were siphoned off," he said in a telephone interview.
"The government is committed to punishing those responsible and has now set up a panel to recommend what action to take against those who are allegedly responsible for the scam."
ASKED TO LEAVE?
The government became aware of the incident in 2009 after the U.N. reported that the armoured vehicles sent by Nepal were unsafe and did not meet U.N. specifications.
A Nepali parliamentary team was then sent to the troubled Darfur region in April last year which confirmed the vehicles were unsafe and a probe was established to examine the procurement process.
There have been media reports that the U.N. has repeatedly asked Kathmandu to replace the equipment or risk being pulled out of the peacekeeping mission and repatriated.
But U.N. officials have dismissed this, saying that while the APCs "did not meet the U.N. requirements to fulfil their mandated tasks" and were being sent back to Nepal, there was no question of repatriation of the country's peacekeepers.
The United Nations is not currently considering repatriation of any of its FPUs (Formed Police Units) currently serving in peacekeeping operations," Nick Birnback, chief of public affairs for the U.N. department of peacekeeping operations, told TrustLaw.
“The (Nepali) unit is currently fully operational using U.N.-owned equipment," said Birnback, adding that "the Nepali authorities have committed to replacing the vehicles as a matter of priority".
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