Nepal's government agrees to pay the airlift bill for ten oxygen generators
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- Announcement
In June 2021 the Nepali government agreed to cover the cost of flying ten oxygen generators and five high-pressure cylinder filling systems from France to Kathmandu.
The approval mattered because the freight bill was a substantial fraction of the project. The equipment had been ordered; the consortium's donors had paid for the machines; nobody had a spare quarter of a million dollars for an aircraft. Mission Rebuild Nepal credited Yuvraj Sharma with pressing the case in Kathmandu, and thanked officials at the COVID-19 Crisis Management Centre and the prime minister's office for taking the request seriously.
The announcement was confident about timing. The organisation told donors it was two to three weeks away from shipping, and asked for continued support to cover the operating costs the government money would not touch.
That estimate did not survive contact with the process. A change of government in July, a failed tender, a second tender, a missed payment deadline and a disputed force majeure claim followed. The plants left France on 20 July 2022, by ship.
