Nepal Maoists accused of pocketing money for their former rebels

Dec 9, 2011, 10:19 GMT

Kathmandu - Nepal's parliament demanded the government provide information on money disbursed to former Maoist rebels after Maoist political leaders were accused of pocketing some of it, media reports said Friday.

The parliamentary Public Accounts Committee ordered the Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction Thursday to provide the information in a week.

The opposition parties Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist-Leninist accused the leaders of the ruling Maoist party of embezzling payments the government provides monthly to former rebels as part of the 2006 peace deal that ended Nepal's decade-long civil war.

Lawmakers accused Maoist leaders of retaining 'deposits' of 1,000 rupees (12 dollars) from the payments. The deposits have been taken each month from each of the 19,535 combatants housed at camps across the country since November 2006, the Republica newspaper reported.

A recent government survey of the combatants found about 3,000 who were registered as former rebels were missing from the camps, which raised further questions about what Maoist leaders had done with money paid to them.

'If anyone misuses public funds meant for the Maoist combatants, it is a breach on the peace process,' Nepali Congress lawmaker Ram Sharan Mahat said.