MAOIST CC MEET

Kathmandu, 3 Dec,: A delayed meeting of the Maoist central committee got underway Friday a day behind schedule.
The committee is meeting for the first time after the party’s 6th Gorkha plenum which discussed the party’s strategy to tackle national politics in general and the prolonged political deadlock.
The Big Three differ on power-sharing, constitution drafting and concluding the peace process.
Top Maoist leader Deb Gurung for the first time after the Gorkha jamboree said firmly and explicitly the country’s largest party won’t accept multi-party system even if that means a constitution won’t be promulgated in the remaining six months.
The committee meeting is especially important because it has been empowered to narrow down differences on three separate options presented by Chairman Prachanda and Vice-chairmen Mohan Baidya and Dr Baburam Bhattarai for adoption.
There was no agreement on the options in Gorkha.
The proposals will be taken to a general convention if a central committee meet in inconclusive.
Prachanda will a report on the plenum to the central committee
Friday.
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HOME MINISTRY INTEVENTION SOUGHT IN NOC DISPUTE

Kathmandu, 3 Dec.: Nepal Olympic Committee (NOC) led by
Dhruba Bahadur Pradhan has stated that it will request the Home
Ministry to support its appeal against the Supreme Court verdict on October 4 which not only barred it from operating bank accounts but also put a question mark on its legitimacy, Republica reports.
Pradhan claimed that International Olympic Committee (IOC)
and Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) will not recognize the NOC
other than the one led by him,.
“We met IOC and OCA officials during the 16th Asian Games in
Guangzhou and they have clearly said they will recognize the NOC
headed by me,” said Pradhan.
“Rana [Rukma Shumshere] led committee has had met those officials and the group clearly knows the IOC and OCA stand. I think Ranaji will
not take up this issue further.”
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WADHWA SHRUGS RESPONSIBILITY

Kathmandu, 3 Dec.: In the wake of pressure from the government authorities, Rakesh Wadhwa, who runs five casinos in Nepal under Nepal Recreation Centre (NRC), has finally responded to Department of Revenue Investigation (DRI)’s summon. He was summoned three weeks ago, The Kaathmandu Post reports.

According to DRI, it received a two-page letter from Wadhwa on Tuesday which states that Wadhwa has appointed Narottam Joshi as his representative. “Wadhwa, in his letter, has said Joshi has been appointed as his representative and requested DRI to contact Joshi,” said a DRI source.

Wadhwa, according to DRI sources, has refused to take the responsibility of clearing royalty dues of his casinos and instead said the hotels, where his casinos are operating, should pay the dues. The letter was submitted to the department by Wadhwa’s lawyer.

Wadhwa has been absconding ever since the Metropolitan Police Commissioner’s Office issued an ‘internal circular’ to arrest him. He didn’t even turn up at the release of his novel ‘Deal Maker’ on Nov. 13. DRI had instructed the police to present Wadhwa at the department.

Saying that they had summoned Wadhwa, not his representative, a senior DRI official said, “We’ve taken it as poor response on Wadhwa’s part. We’ll not hold discussion with the representative.”

The DRI is now mulling to recover the dues from the hotels. “We’ll have to recover it from the hotels which own the licenses for casinos,” said another senior DRI official.

However, the hoteliers have been saying that the government can’t pressure the hotels after failing to recover royalty dues from the casino operators.

The department had summoned all the casino operators, including Wadhwa, to clear their outstanding royalties and other tax liabilities immediately.

Despite the police crackdown and government pressure, casinos under NRC have neither settled their royalty dues nor responded to DRI’s summon. However, some of the casinos have cleared their royalty dues. Casino Venus, Casino Radd and Casino Grand have already paid their royalty for the last fiscal year, while Casino Royal and Casino Fulbari made partial payments.

NRC runs Casino Nepal, Casino Shangri-La, Casino Anna, Casino Tara and Casino Everest. Of them, only Casino Everest has paid the royalty dues of the last fiscal year. Royalty dues of the rest amount to around Rs 200 million. Wadhwa had taken the control of NRC in 2007.

Casino Nepal, operating at Hotel Soaltee, has the highest dues of Rs 100.09 million, while Casino Anna has Rs 63.36 million. Similarly, royalty dues of Casino Shangri-La and Casin Tara stand at Rs 26.19 million and Rs 5.76 million respectively.

Of late, the government has been pressurising the casinos after they failed to clear their royalty dues. Not only they were summoned by the DRI, but also a new policy measure was introduced in the new budget. In its bid to discourage casino operators’ malpractices of not paying royalties on time, the government, in the new budget, has imposed fines and interests on such outstanding amounts and made it compulsory to renew casino licence every year.

Wadhwa is not only facing pressure from the government, but also from the hotels where his casinos are operating. Hotel Shangri-La and Hyatt Regency have already asked Casino Shangri-La and Tara to vacate their space. Patan Appellate Court on Nov. 14 had annulled its earlier interim order to stay their eviction and gave Shangri-La Hotel the go-ahead to throw out Casino Shangri-La.

Hoteliers say casino operators have also not paid rent. Casino Tara at Hyatt Regency has the highest rent dues of Rs 280 million. Casino Anna has dues worth Rs 5.5 million.
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