The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has charged eight immigration officials for allegedly embezzling government fund of Nu 7.2m from Paro International Airport Immigration Office.
The ACC has completed the investigation and forwarded the report to the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) to review and then prosecute the case before the court of law.
The investigation report states over Nu 2m from the actual misused money was deposited in the government account prior to the investigation.
The commission found that three officials had not deposited the visa fee collections into the government account despite receiving collections from other immigration inspectors. The other five immigration inspectors were found to have collected the visa fees from foreign nationals but had not handed over the cash to the dealing official to be deposited into the government account.
The commission also uncovered that 392 coupon pages or visa fee receipts, amounting to Nu 980,000 were missing. And due to that, they couldn’t find the perpetrators to fix the accountability.
The ACC recommended the officials if proven guilty, will have to reimburse the embezzled fund along with 24 per cent of penal interest.
The commission investigated this alleged misused of funds, which took place from January 2013-June 2017.
