A complaint has been lodged with the Abuse of Authority Investigation Commission stating that there were irregularities in the procurement process of the core banking software of the National Commercial Bank.
A complaint has been filed against the National Commercial Bank for irregularities in the procurement process of the centralized core banking system.
National Commercial Bank called for public tenders for the purchase of core banking software on 14th Chait 2079, in which 5 companies submitted letters of intent. Then on 19th June 2080, the bank shortlisted 4 companies by publishing a notice.
According to the information published on 19th June, CAS Trading Pvt Ltd of Nepal, Infodevelopers JV MOS, Thakral One Nepal Pvt Ltd and Flora Telecom and Flora System Limited JVs of Bangladesh were shortlisted.
So far the incident was fine. But it has been found that the activities of the National Commercial Bank in the software procurement process have progressed suspiciously.
After 3 months in August 2080, the bank removed the name of Thakaral One Nepal, which was listed earlier, without any reason, and replaced it with Aspire Systems Consulting Pvt Ltd of Singapore.
If there is any error in the list, the list should be amended as soon as possible by giving the reason to be confirmed. But the bank has revised the shortlist without any reason. What is even more surprising is that it took 3 months to revise the previous list. Does it take 3 months to revise a list? Besides raising serious questions here, the smell of irregularities is clearly visible.
Changing the list and publishing the information without explaining the reason seems to be against the Public Procurement Act 2063 and the Public Procurement Regulations 2064 and also the precedents rendered in the Supreme Court on various dates.
On the other hand, other companies say that the bank has amended the shortlist itself to bring in foreign companies for unfair benefits.
But Divesh Prasad Lohani, information officer of National Commercial Bank, has claimed that he has revised the shortlist after completing the process.
“We have completed all the procedures in accordance with the Public Procurement Act for the purchase of software. Being a government body, any procurement is done according to the public law,' he told ICT news, 'the shortlist list that was published mistakenly has been corrected. In that too, the process was completed and everyone was informed. If we were to hide it, we would do it without knowing! .'
Another thing is that the bank had stipulated in the letter of intent that there should be an international supplier to supply the software system and that it should work in Nepal. But it was found that the bank itself did not follow this arrangement while choosing the supplier.
Flora Company, which has no experience in Nepal and has no software operations in Nepal, has been shortlisted only in Bangladesh.
Apart from this, in the process of inviting bids, even though there is a mandatory provision to prepare the RFP evaluation before the opening of the letter of intent, the bank has prepared the RFP evaluation criteria only after the opening of the letter of intent and the evaluation of the letter of intent.
In any public procurement process, the mandatory condition of eligibility is kept under the 'Eligibility & Completeness Test' and evaluated accordingly, but after evaluating the letter of intent, publishing the short list and asking for the RFP, adding the mandatory criteria that is not provided anywhere, 'Consultant must pass and have the following 3 technical eligibility criteria if those are not complied then no further examination and evaluation will be carried out' RFP criteria has been made.
Thus, based on the details submitted by one of the bidders, the bank has been accused of planning financial irregularities by forcibly adding mandatory criteria to the RFP stage to the detriment of others.
In the same way, except for special circumstances, in the procurement process, technical proposal is evaluated in the ratio of 80% and financial proposal of 20%. Even if there is no such special situation, the bank has arranged to evaluate technical proposal 90 percent and financial proposal 10 percent ratio to select the bidder it wants. Evaluating in the ratio of 90:10 means evaluating only the technical aspects and no matter how many financial proposals are submitted, they are automatically approved.
It is suspected that the government-owned National Commercial Bank, which is run by people's taxes, has made such provisions to purchase software at high prices for financial corruption.
Currently, the National Commercial Bank is using indigenous software developed by Mercantile. Mercantile's software, which is running successfully even abroad, has not seen any problems.
He said that even after understanding with the officials of Mercantile, the National Commercial Bank did not give any letter or information about the problem in the software.
Just some time ago, Nepal Clearing House awarded Rashtriya Commercial Bank as the commercial bank with the most digital transactions. From this it can be understood that there is no problem with the software currently running in the bank.
Although there is no problem with the software, the board of directors, management group and consultants of the National Commercial Bank have been accused of advancing the procurement process under the temptation of commission. Without a doubt, buying new software is sure to put a huge burden on the state.
General Secretary of CAN Federation, Chiranjeevi Adhikari, said that even though Nepali software is capable, it is not a good thing to do many things to bring foreign software.
'Can Federation's demand is that Nepali software should be used in Nepal. This will help Nepal's IT industry,' said the official, 'but using foreign software for commission is not a good thing even when a domestic company is capable. This also poses a risk to cyber security. This practice should end.'
He also warned that the CAN Federation will not remain silent if the Nepali software company is ignored by many insults.
Taking into consideration the current economic scenario and the overall interest of the bank, the work of acquiring a new system by replacing the core banking system and other technologies used by the bank is very expensive and the procedural and financial risks will increase during the acquisition. Since the annual system operating expenses will increase several times compared to the present, a lot of caution should be taken.
Kiran Kumar Shrestha, CEO of Rashtriya Commercial Bank, will end his 4-year tenure in March. Addressing the bank's 58th anniversary about 1 year ago, Shrestha mentioned that he would buy international software.
The public expression of the CEO of the bank to move forward with the new software purchase process by replacing the successfully running international level software, did it not come in a planned way? The question has arisen.
The phenomenon of the government agencies removing indigenous software and bringing in foreign software for commission has made a mockery of the government's 'Make in Nepal and Made in Nepal' campaign.