<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111412114/6372214b9c7e80680e0c02abjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="466"/>After the Department of Land Transportation (DoTM) issued a 16 July deadline for vehicle owners in Nepal to replace current license plates with embossed ones, it has emerged that the company contracted to do so was blacklisted by the World Bank.The Nepal government repeatedly extended the $44 million contract it granted to a subsidiary of Tiger IT Bangladesh to install the computerised car plates which have camera-readable English digits, and an embedded chip that allows GPS tracking.Nepali Times has obtained official documents that show that on 24 April 2019, Tiger IT Bangladesh and its CEO Ziaur Rahman were blacklisted by the World Bank’s Sanctions Board for ‘collusive, corrupt and disruptive’ practices on a bid for one of its projects in Bangladesh.Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-goes-electric-but-conditions-apply/"> Nepal goes electric, but conditions apply</a>, Ramesh Kumar<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111412114/6372214d9c7e80680e0c02acjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="456" height="560"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The case was heard on 5 March 5 2019 at the World Bank's headquarters in Washington DC in presence of its vice-chair where it concluded, ‘The defendants were found to have colluded in barring open competition.’Tiger IT is said to have bribed top government officials, did not provide required details and documents to the World Bank, and ‘deliberately acted to materially impede the Bank’s investigation into the misconduct’. The company is barred from participating in any other World Bank projects for nine and a half years, and its CEO Rahman for six and a half years.Decatur-Tiger IT, a joint venture of Tiger IT Bangladesh and US company Decatur, was first awarded the contract on 30 May 2016 to install embossed number plates on vehicles in Nepal in a deal worth $43.787 million (Rs4.68 billion).Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-risks-being-blacklisted-on-money-laundering/">Nepal risks being blacklisted on money laundering</a>, Sharad Ojha<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111412114/6372214f9c7e80680e0c02adjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1231" height="487"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The initial agreement was to install number plates in 2.5 million vehicles in five years by mid-September of 2021. But after delays, the government renewed the contract for another two-and-half years despite knowing that the company had been sanctioned the previous year by the World Bank in its home country.In 2014, Tiger IT had won a World Bank contract for the 'Identification System for Enhancing Access to Service Project' to establish a secure and reliable national identity system in Bangladesh. But the Bank’s investigation found that Tiger IT and its French partner had committed  fraud to win the bid.Interestingly, Tiger IT has been involved in a slew of other projects in Nepal for the past decade. In 2013 it provided voter registration system software services to the Election Commission with support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The project, however, did not go ahead for unspecified reasons, but that is not mentioned on the company’s homepage.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepals-richest-man-in-the-pandora-papers/">Nepal’s richest man in the Pandora Papers</a>, Nepali Times<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111412114/637221519c7e80680e0c02aejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="761" height="397"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>In 2010 it was involved in the conversion to machine-readable passports in Nepal in collaboration with France’s Oberthur Technologies.Experts find it fishy that a blacklisted foreign company has such insider access to successive governments in Nepal that it wins one controversial contract after another. The passport project was also mired in allegations of kickbacks in high places.The embossed number plate project has also been criticised because the letters and digits are in English and not Nepali when many countries in the region, including Bangladesh itself, have number plates with fonts of the country’s national language.The DoTM deadline requires all vehicles in Gandaki and Bagmati provinces to switch to embossed plates or face a fine. There is an elaborate online process to fill the forms in English, and the process is said to be cumbersome, opening the possibility of further corruption and payoff to middlemen at DoTM offices.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/from-the-nepali-press/corruption-deep-rooted-in-government/">Corruption deep rooted in government</a>, Nepali Times

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Embossed plate company involved in scam

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108131140/636a4ed59c7e80680e04fcd8jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1400" height="896"/><figcaption>FLASHBACK: Nepal’s Labour Minister Tek Bahadur Gurung met with Malaysian Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi (left) in Kuala Lumpur in 2015, agreeing on letting private Malysian and Nepali companies to process visas for Nepali workers.</figcaption></figure>The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission began prosecution this week against Malaysia’s former Deputy Prime Minister and Internal Affairs Minister, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, for charges against corruption related to migrant labour.Hamidi was arrested on 24 June and released on bail after being charged with 33 crimes, including one that claims he took more than 42 million Malaysian Ringgit (more than $10 million), as a bribe for letting the Malaysian company, Ultra Kirana, become a One Stop Center (OSC) for visa processing and labour migration. If these allegations are proven, Hamidi could face a jail sentence of up to 20 years.Hamidi was named in a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/kleptocrats-of-kathmandu-and-kualalampur/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">joint investigation conducted by Nepali Times and Malaysiakini</a> last year in a Rs1.9 billion scam that cheated tens of thousands of poor Nepalis between 2013-17 who were migrating to work in Malaysia.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/kleptocrats-of-kathmandu-and-kualalampur/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kleptocrats of Kathmandu and Kuala Lumpur</a>, Ramu Sapkota with Alyaa Alhadjri Ultra Kirana, the company accused of bribing Hamidi, represents Malaysia’s VLN company in Nepal, that processes the visa applications of Nepali migrant workers going to Malaysia. VLN Nepal used to collect illegal fees from labourers and send the money to Ultra Kirana through informal channels.Since the investigation was published, the government in Malaysia changed after elections, and both countries banned the Nepali workers going to Malaysia pending an inquiry. Nepal Labour Minister Gokarna Bista promised to clean up the racket and make it fee-free for Nepalis wanting to work in Malaysia. The ban has still not been lifted.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/malaysia-wants-ban-lifted/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Malaysia wants ban lifted</a><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108131140/636a4ed99c7e80680e04fcd9jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1400" height="933"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>In Malaysia, investigations on Prime Minister Najib Razak’s government began after a new government was formed under Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad following the general elections in 2018. Hamidi, who was the Internal Affairs Minister in Razak’s administration, was arrested for the first time in October 2018 by Malaysia’s Anti-Corruption Commission.He was charged with acquiring at least 114 million Ringgit ($2.6 million) through illegal means, and 45 cases were filed at the High Court, including 27 cases of money laundering, 10 of breach of trust, and 8 for accepting bribes.Among the charges of bribery was one that alleged that he accepted more than $3 million from three companies including Profound Radiance, which used to collect the passports of Nepali workers and take them to the Malaysian Embassy in Kathmandu. The charge sheet mentions that Hamidi accepted a total of three bank cheques worth 2 million Ringgit ($300,000) from Ajlan Shah Jafril, the Director of Profound Radiance.Read also: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/disproportionate-number-of-deaths-of-Nepali-workers-in-Malaysia,2812" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dying to work in Malaysia</a>, Sonia AwaleMalaysia’s Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi met Nepal’s then Labour Minister Tek Bahadur Gurung in 2015 and outsourced the work to Ultra Kirana Sdn Bhd which required Nepali migrant workers to apply for work visas through the Kathmandu-based affiliate, Malaysia VLN Nepal. The agency charged Rs3,200 from every Malaysia-bound Nepali worker, and collected Rs1.95 billion from more than 600,000 workers between September 2013 and April 2018.Then in July 2015, Malaysia made it mandatory for all Nepali migrants to undergo a biometric test for which the Malaysian government hired Bestinet Sdn Bhd, a tech firm run by Hamidi’s brother-in-law Amin Bin Abdul Nor. Hamidi’s brother Abdul Hakim Hamidi and ex-Malaysian Environment Minister Ajmi Khalid also reportedly owned shares in Bestinet.Read also: <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Nepali-migrants-hounded-out-Malaysia-,3036" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hounded out of Malaysia</a>, Om Astha RaiBestinet partnered with Nepal Health Professional Federation (NHPF) to carry out biometric screening through 39 medical centres which charged Rs4,500 from each migrant worker for biometrics. Bestinet denied the allegations, and in a statement published in July 2018, they hinted that it could take legal action against Nepali Times and the reporters.Previously, migrant workers could apply for visas independently or through a manpower agency. They could get a work visa for just Rs700, and could have medical tests done at any of 200 government-approved health facilities.In Nepal, the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security started prosecuting the company that charged migrant labourers extra fees. Since then, Nepali workers were stopped from going to Malaysia even though the two governments <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-malaysia-labour-pact/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">signed a Memorandum of Understanding</a> (MoU) on October 2018 to resume sending workers.Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.atavist.com/nepalis-killed-in-the-line-of-duty" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Killed in the line of duty</a>, Om Astha Rai and Sonia AwaleThe Minister for Labour, Gokarna Bista, says the selection of an institution for health checkups of aspiring labour migrants is in the last stages now, adding that the Joint Technical Committee, tasked with implementing the MoU, is preparing for its second meeting.“No one has the right to swindle workers. The ministry’s stance on the companies that created a syndicate in visa processing remains the same,” Bista told Nepali Times.However, even as the case against Hamidi moves forward in the Malaysian courts, in Nepal, the counterparts of the companies involved have gone scot free.None of the companies involved, or the senior officials who allowed Hamidi to get away with swindling labour migrants, have been investigated.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-malaysia-labour-pact/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepal-Malaysia Labour Pact</a>, Ramu Sapkota  Additional reporting by Abdul Rashid

scam

Embossed plate company involved in scam

Punished in Malaysia, ignored in Nepal