This is a true story of a father-in-law and his son-in-law. Both of them are expert in vandalizing the tax payers' money. When Nepalese King Gyanendra took direct control of Nepal, in 2002, he dismissed parliament and put many politicians in prison by accusing them of corruption and mismanagement. His autocractic rule in Nepal continued until April 2006, when he was forced to restore democracy after a pro democracy movement. Now, it seems that King Granendra and his son-in-law Raj Bahadur Singh had put up the best show of corruption and mismanagement of state wealth. Here are some of their misdeeds:
- Just before he conceded to the pro-democracy movement, King Gyanendra gave the contract of building a railway to his son-in-law, law Raj Bahadur Singh. The budget of this contract was more than NRS 20,000 million ($269,722,960).
- Infrastructure Nepal Private Ltd, a Nepalese engineering company, did the feasibility study for this project earlier and submitted an application and the study to the Nepalese government. That application was rejected and Gyanendra's son-in-law only copied that study and got the contract.
- No bidding was done for the project and so no other company could submit their proposal.
- The pre-paid mobile phone service of Nepal Telecom (a state owned company) was stopped so that the company of Royal son-in-law Raj Bahadur Singh could have monopoly in this business.
- Since, a relative of King Gyanendra could not finish a project in time; the then Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba cancelled the contract. To take revenge, King Gyanendra sent Sher Bahadur Deuba and former physical planning and works minister Prakash Man Singh to prison with corruption charges. Later, the Supreme Court cleared them of these charges.
Raj Bahadur Singh is still a young man and he is lucky that he got married with the daughter of King Gyanendra. However, his good fortune is coming to an end as the new democratic government is canceling one after another contract that he got from his father-in-law in the last 4 years. So, Raj Bahadur Singh is going to share the misfortune of his father-in-law too now. We often hear the proverb: Like father like son. It seems that a new proverb should be added: Like father-in-law like father-in-law.
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