| LaataMora |
Posted
on 15-Aug-03 02:57 PM
Alliance Insurance engaged in irregularities
By Milan Mani Sharma
KATHMANDU, Aug 14
Alliance Insurance (AI), one of the twelve non-life insurance companies operating in Nepal, is engaged in irregularities that go against the interest of the shareholders and flout governing regulations and directives.
The company has been concealing its transactions with promoters, issuing insurance to them without premium payment, and accepting bounced cheques from them, states the latest confidential report of the Insurance Board (IB), the insurance regulatory authority. All such acts, in the eyes of insurance laws, are illegal.
Hotel Radission, owned by B K Shrestha, one of the promoters of the AI, has not paid due premium worth Rs. 7.27 million rupees. Yet, the hotel is fully insured and the Company would have to settle any claims made by it.
Similarly, Surya Carpet, Kalinchowk Trade Concern, and Surya Pashmina owned by Laxman Shrestha, another promoter of the Company, renewed their insurance policy for four consecutive years without paying any premium, except for the fourth year.
Manipulation in the non-life insurance companies is, however, not new in Nepal. Only few weeks ago The Kathmandu Post had reported similar irregularities in the case of United Insurance promoted by, among others, a renowned business house, the Choudhary Group.
What is shocking about Alliance is the fact that promoters have gone to the extent of issuing cheques to the Company knowing that it would bounce!
Kalinchowk Trade Concern and Surya Carpet issued such cheques to pay its due premium. Shockingly enough, AI never complained that; instead, it later on paid claims to Kalinchowk Trade accepting the bounced cheque as a payment of its premium dues.
Pushpa Das Shrestha, Managing Director of AI, however, defended the Company saying, "We have already asked the promoters to payback their dues in writing and have warned them of cancelling businesses non-compliance."
"Among others, Hotel Radisson has agreed to settle its due in four instalment," he said. He, however, accepted incidents of bounced cheques.
B K Shrestha of Hotel Radisson accepted his hotels failure to clear the outstanding premium. "We have started settling the account gradually," he said. Laxman Shrestha, proprietor of Surya Carpet, Surya Pashmina and Kalinchok Trade Concern, too, said that he has already started repayment process.
Alliance has also flouted the insurance laws in its investment decisions. It has invested Rs 200,000 in Nepal Cooperatives Society, despite opposition from IB since the co-operative had not obtained licence from Nepal Rastra Bank. Similarly, it has also invested Rs 300, 000 in Peoples Finance, which is an institutional shareholder of AI. Insurance Regulation prohibits any investment in Shareholding Company.
The on-site inspection by IB, according to the report, further reveals that the company has a large number of unsettled claims. It has not settled 361 claims lodged by general clients till 2001/02, the report says.
The company-appointed surveyors (person/institute that verifies losses claimed by policyholders), too, have not submitted reports for 97 claims within the stipulated deadline of 15 days, as of first of 2002/03
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| ozdownunder2 |
Posted
on 15-Aug-03 08:03 PM
In Nepal, there are no competent governmental regulators like in Australia there are Australian Securities and Invesitigation Commission; to see if the Nepalese Companies Codes have been violated and such companies penalised in civil and criminal courts. In Nepal, there are no regulators like the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to see if poor Nepalese consumers have been defrauded or misrepresented by crook corporations and their directors and executives. In Nepal, there are no bankruptcy laws and if they exist they are not implemented. In Nepal, there are no reglator like in Australia called APRA (Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority) to oversee insurance, supeannuation and banks....In Nepal, only the rules of the jungle exists and these Shrestha clan dominate many fronts as chief de mission in providing bribes to politicians and bureaucrats.
Since deregulations has occured for example I know Rajana Cinema Sahus being Raj Krishna Shrestha, Binod Krishna Shrestha et. al...and they have hands in all kinds of Nepalese pies galore from Ace Insurance to Bhutwal Electricity Corporation and much more.
Their holding companies then borrow, beg or steal from other subsidiary companies or vice versa to defeat any tax laws and so forth...but this has been going in any Asian Organisations from the Japanese Jaibatsu to the Korean Chaebols....Crime and politics are mixed and intertwined...bribe and benefit go hand in hand...that is why Japan's real estate glass ceiling collapsed and 1.6 trillion American dollars worth of Yakuja manipulated bad debts has not been written off...those very banks are given many times a life, when the world knows that they are bankrupt and linked with the political parties in grand scale...the state of Nepal is not that grand in terms of these kinds of market distortion....
However, in my summing up is that moral story that I like to repeat....Nepalese vicious vicious cycle of poverty is thus maintained by these types of parasites of the society. We need to learn from the west to bring a Republic to Nepal, bring democracy, develop our institutions and get rid of these parasites asap....
What is your vision, mission, obejective and strategy for Nepal ?
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