Nepal business, finance and trade news, every Wednesday.
Malaysia Stops Nepali Hiring Over Dispute, Fraud
Malaysia has stopped taking new Nepali workers while the two governments fight over recruitment agencies. The Malaysian foreign worker system has not registered any medical checks since mid-October and that’s blocked the issuance of visas. Malaysia wants 25 principal agencies (each with 10 affiliates), to manage the recruitment process, but Kathmandu hasn’t approved them and wants the old system kept in place until the countries can come to a new agreement. Malaysia took 132,000 Nepalis last fiscal year and is responsible for about a fifth of Nepal's remittances. As far as the stop to the medical test is concerned, police say an unauthorized charge on medical tests for more than 750,000 Malaysia-bound workers resulted in Rs 1.69 billion ($11 million) being sent to Bestinet’s account in Malaysia. The Central Investigation Bureau has already arrested four people on fraud and organized crime charges.
Read more: Ratopati (dispute), Online Khabar (Medical Fees)
UN Reserves $21.6M for Bhotekoshi Recovery
The UN loss and damage fund has provisionally set aside $21.6 million for Nepal's Bhotekoshi-Trishuli flood recovery, which will be the first allocation the fund has ever made (to any country). Oversight fees will eat up $1.6 million, so the balance of $20 million will be availble for projects. Nepal still has to file a full proposal for the board to consider in December, and no payment date has been promised. It’s a tidy sum, but will fall well short of what the government thinks will end up costing $4.71 billion.
Read more: Mongabay (first allocation), The Hindu (funding gap), Spotlight Nepal (other climate funding), The Kathmandu Post (recovery needs)
Advertisement:
Private Flood Losses Up To $521 Million
The National Planning Commission estimates that the Bhotekoshi-Trishuli flood has resulted in Rs 79.17 billion ($521 million) in private losses in four districts. Households are going be bear the brunt of the damage, estimated at Rs 69 billion ($454 million), and businesses have been penciled in for Rs 9.69 billion ($64 million) of losses. More than half of the 6,817 impacted households are in Nuwakot. A National Assembly committee has been set up to take a look at three flood-damaged districts in early November for further assessment.
Read more: The Annapurna Express (loss breakdown), Online Khabar (committee inspection)
Indian Imports to Avoid Winter Load-Shedding
The Nepal Electricity Authority plans to import 1,154 MW from India through this winter, which is almost half the expected peak demand. Its managing director has ruled out load-shedding in favor of the purchases. Floods and landslides have reduced existing generation, and the authority has reduced supply to factories by about 300 MW. Despite the Nepalese announcement of their plans, to date India has approved only 654 MW through December, AND the existing permitted hours specifically exclude Nepal’s evening peak. New Delhi is expected to review the January allocation sometime during the month of December.
Read more: The Kathmandu Post
Trekking Permits Suspended on Cyclone Arnab
Immigration officials have suspended trekking permits for restricted high-altitude areas from tomorrow through October 31 as Cyclone Arnab gets closer. They fear that heavy snow could cause avalanches, and officials have told trekkers with permits to delay their trips or stop in safe places. The heaviest rain is forecast from tomorrow night through Saturday afternoon. Lower down the mountain(s), meteorologists are also working to try and get farmers to bring forward some of their rice harvest before the storm or wait until it passes.
Read more: NDTV (permit suspension), The Rising Nepal (trekker advisory), The Kathmandu Post (storm timing), myRepublica (rainfall forecast)
Cabinet Backs Bill for Budhigandaki Hydro
The Cabinet has approved drafting a bill to create a development authority for the 1,200 MW Budhigandaki hydropower project. If it comes to pass, it means another change of course for a project that’s already expected to cost Rs 260 billion ($1.7 billion). The previous budget called for a public-private partnership, and the Energy Ministry had told the project company to use a financing plan approved by the interim government. A ministry official warned that setting up an authority would take “considerable” time.
Read more: The Kathmandu Post
Court Voids ID Mandate, Orders Data Protection
In a rare win for sanity and the public, banks are no longer able to refuse customers who don’t have a national ID. The Supreme Court struck down a Nepal Rastra Bank order that made the ID required for the opening or renewing of accounts. The court also ordered the government to come up with a dedicated data protection law, while suggesting that biometric checks should return only a yes or no answer to an identity check.
Read more: Biometricupdate
Most Gov’t Sites Back Online After PHP Shutdown
A central patch has brought most government websites back online after officials shut them down while they took time to patch critical flaws in the PHP (computer) scripting language. No successful attack on a Nepali site has been reported to date. The Medical Education Commission's website and the Nagarik App are still offline while officials work with their vendors to apply the same fixes.
Read more: The Kathmandu Post (restoration timeline), The Kathmandu Post (CVE severity), The Kathmandu Post (patched sites)
That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.
If you value Nepal Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.