Kathmandu – In Nepal, it has become common to set tender specifications in a way that benefits certain companies.
The latest example is Nepal Telecom’s billing system contract, which was designed to favor the Chinese company Huawei. Top management of NTC prepared the tender so Huawei could win and even approved the use of software that had already been phased out.
The manufacturer had officially marked this software as 'End of Life,' but Nepal Telecom still allowed it in the tender. Clause 12.14 of the billing contract tender document specified the minimum standards for servers, operating systems, and networks, recognizing Intel’s 'Xeon Platinum 8000' series as valid.
'End of Life' means a product is no longer maintained — it may still function, but it is outdated and unsafe to rely on, especially for critical systems like billing or banking.
The tender document not only listed Intel’s Xeon Platinum 8000 series as acceptable but also required that the system should not reach its End of Life within five years of starting use.
However, a document obtained by biznessnews.com confirms that Intel had already announced this processor series would reach End of Life on January 14.
This is a major oversight in a sensitive project like billing. If management did not know this, it shows either poor technical knowledge or negligence. The issue only came to light during the evaluation process.
Even so, work is still going on to award the contract to Huawei. The evaluation committee has studied Huawei and the other bidder, Whale Cloud, and submitted its report. All indications suggest the process was planned from the beginning to award the contract to Huawei.
Huawei is currently unable to buy new chips from Europe or the US and now relies on older technology from 2019–20. This is why the tender allowed the use of Intel Xeon Platinum 8000 processors. But after Intel declared them End of Life, new efforts began to adjust the tender again.
Acting Managing Director Sabina Maskey has been involved in these efforts. Sources say she wrote a letter to Huawei to amend the tender, a move that violates the Public Procurement Act, which forbids changes after tender documents are submitted or once evaluation has begun.
This is not the first case of irregularities at Nepal Telecom. The anti-corruption body had earlier filed a case against former Managing Director Sunil Paudel and a supplier company for installing different specifications than required in another project.
If Huawei wins the billing contract, it will control both Nepal Telecom’s network and billing systems. This will make the company dependent on a single vendor, increasing security and operational risks.
Nepal Telecom also failed to verify the accuracy of the software and products mentioned in the specifications. Such carelessness in a key process could seriously damage the organization.
