New Delhi: After protest from an Indian company, Nepal’s Supreme Court of Nepal has temporarily disallowed the Nepalese Army from awarding a major infrastructure contract to a Chinese company.
On 15 November, the Nepal Army had awarded the contract for the sixth package of the Kathmandu-Terai-Madhesh Expressway to a Chinese company — China First Highway Engineering Company Ltd.
The highway project aims to link Nepal’s capital Kathmandu with Nijgadh, located in the south and about 55km from the Indian border.
On 24 November, Afcons Infrastructure Limited, an Indian company which was one of the bidders for the contract, subsequently filed a writ petition against the Army’s decision.
After hearing the writ petition reportedly registered by advocate Rojan Khadka on behalf of the Indian firm, the Supreme Court of Nepal on Thursday issued a short-term interim order that temporarily bans the Nepalese Army from awarding contracts to the Chinese firm.
This order is only short term as the court has scheduled another hearing for Friday.
Three months prior, the Nepalese army had deemed the Chinese firm “technically unfit” to take up the project, according to a report in the Kathmandu Post.
This is not the first time that China First Highway Engineering Company Ltd has courted controversy.
In December 2014, the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) debarred and fined the Chiense firm for “fraudulent and collusive practices” in tendering for an AfDB-financed contract in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
‘National Pride Project’
The Kathmandu-Terai/Madhesh Expressway, dubbed Nepal’s ‘National Pride Project’, is not a construction project under the supervision of the government of Nepal but rather its Army.
In 2017, after “several setbacks” in the construction process, the Nepalese government — then led by PM Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda — formally handed over the project to the Nepalese Army.
Construction of the expressway was slated to be completed by March, 2024.
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