The committee about four months ago had instructed the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation (MoTCA) to come up with stringent guidelines on the operations of casino within two weeks. But the ministry has yet to submit the guidelines.[break]
Speaking at the PAC meeting on Friday, Tourism Secretary Dr Ganesh Raj Joshi said they were waiting for the comments from the Ministry of Home Affairs on the guidelines. “We are also waiting the cabinet´s nod,” he added.
Government officials and lawmakers also couldn´t forge consensus on the fate of labor after the casinos shut operations as per the government´s instructions.
Finance Secretary Krishna Hari Baskota said no companies with outstanding dues to the government should be allowed to operate business. “We can´t allow anyone to flout rule of law,” he added.
But Tourism Secretary Joshi argued that it was not easy to revoke license because casinos operated by Nepal Recreation Centre were yet to clear salary of employees and closure of casinos might give the promoters an easy escape.
Similarly, IGP Rabindra Pratap Shah said it will not possible for the nine casinos in the capital to survive if Nepalis are not allowed in the casinos. “The government should have taken into consideration the number of foreigners visiting the country before issuing operating licenses to casinos,” he said.
Lawmaker Dhanraj Gurung and Rabinda Adhikari said it was a shame that the government had failed to recover outstanding royalty from the casinos in more than six months. The delay in preparing working guidelines and recent arrest of Nepali citizens in casinos show that authorities concerned are not taking PAC´s instructions seriously, they added.
Shanta Bahadur Shrestha, director general of Department of Revenue Investigation (DRI), said that the department was in the process of auctioning off land under the ownership of NRC to recover due that its two casinos owe to it.
NRC has around 3.5 ropanis of land in Kalimati.
The government has already frozen bank accounts of four casinos.
Casino Nepal and Casino Anna promoted by Nepal Recreation Center have outstanding dues of Rs 130 million and Rs 107.3 million respectively. Similarly, Casino Royale owes Rs 23 million and Casino Fulbari is still to pay Rs 73.6 million to the government.
According to Department of Revenue Investigation (DRI), casino operators altogether have outstanding dues of Rs 340 million to settle with the government. The department recovered Rs 210 million from the casino operators after the PAC directed the government to scrap operating license of casinos that failed to pay their dues on time.
The committee on March 25 had instructed the government to scrap the license of these four casinos after they did not respond to the last call of DRI.
The PAC has instructed MoTCA to come up with working guidelines on casinos within 15 days and to submit registration details of casinos to the committee every fortnight.
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