All eyes are on Shital Niwas after the government forwarded two ordinances to the President for approval. Minister for Information and Communications Raj Kishor Yadav confirmed that the cabinet has passed the two bills on Sunday and requested President Ram Baran Yadav to officially bring out the ordinance. "The government is compelled to bring the ordinance in order to avoid being blacklisted by Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global inter-governmental anti-money laundering body.", Yadav said.
The Mutual Legal Assistance Act allows the government to investigate suspicious financial transactions and ‘black accounts’ in foreign countries. Similarly, the Extradition Treaty Act would compel the government to surrender a suspected or convicted criminals to their respective countries.
The opposition parties Nepali Congress and CPN (UML) have been insisting that the caretaker government does not have political mandate to table the bills and urged the President not to approve the two bills but sources in the President’s office say that the bills would be approved as failing to do so would send a wrong message to investors world over and directly impact the country’s already fledgling economy.