NTB board to meet after 14-month gap

SANGAM PRASAIN
KATHMANDU, OCT 09 -

The board of the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) is finally meeting on Sunday after a 14-month-long delay caused by a dispute over the appointment of board members by the government.

The NTB’s board meeting is required to be held every two months.

The Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation decided to call the board meeting as the delay was affecting NTB’s

programmes and the Nepal Tourism Year 2011 campaign.

The board, chaired by the tourism secretary, has 11 members consisting of five government representatives, five private sector representatives and the chief executive officer of the NTB.

The meeting stalled when the present government appointed five members from the private sector replacing those who had been appointed by the previous Maoist-led government. The Maoist-led government had appointed Prasiddha Bahadur Pandey, Rajan Sakya, Ganesh Prasad Simkhada, Agni Prasad Kandel and Nimi Sherpa as board members.

Three of the five board members who had been bumped moved the Supreme Court challenging the government decision as their three-year tenure had not expired. The other two tendered their resignation which was approved by the board.

The NTB is now holding the board meeting after asking the three members who’ve gone to court to sit on the board meeting. Tourism secretary and chairman of the board Kishore Thapa said that they had to do it as the delay had paralysed the NTB when NTY 2011 was approaching.

“Although the NTB is conducting its programmes and meeting its expenses through an advance budget, the delay in holding the board meeting can affect its programmes,” said an official of the Tourism Ministry.

NTB spokesman Aditya Baral said that the government’s move to call the board meeting in a bid to resolve the problem was a positive one. Established to promote Nepali tourism, the NTB has been a victim of politicization with every successive government replacing the board members with its own people. “Although the NTB is an autonomous body, political interference has been paralyzing its importance,” said a senior NTB official.

“We are not against the board or any activities that the board is conducting to promote tourism, but if there seems to be any sign of the budget being misused, we won’t let it be approved,” said Simkhada who is attending the board meeting.

Simkhada added that the annual budget should be disclosed to the media also, and that misuse of the budget by ministers and sending representatives of political parties on foreign junkets under the media expenses head should be stopped.