Tshering Namgyal | Mongar

The embezzlement charge against former Mongar gaydrung has been dropped after the accused refunded the claims and deposited the year’s rural life insurance premiums collected from the people of Mongar gewog.

The former gaydrung, Kinzang Wangmo deposited the alleged embezzled amount of Nu 475,000 in the Royal Insurance Corporation of Bhutan (RICB) account and refunded the insurance claim of Nu 150,000 (30,000 each) to family members of five death cases, whose premiums were not deposited.

The case came to the limelight when the RICB’s Branch office in Mongar refused to release the claim after it was found that their premium had been not deposited by the gewog administration as usual, and was not permissible as per the financial rules.




The frustrated family members approached the gewog administration. The gewog realised that the premium collected for 2021-2022 was embezzled by the gaydrung, who did not deposit the premiums in the RICB account despite the repeated reminders. The gewog administration filed a case with the police in Mongar.

However, the police did not register the case after reviewing the case on the grounds that the nature of the case involves corruption and that it was not under their purview.

Gewog officials said while the gewog was drafting a petition to the Anti-Corruption Commission of Bhutan (ACC), the accused had made adjustments and paid the dues.

“Since the issue has been resolved and with no complaints from the public, we decided not to lodge a complaint to ACC,” an official said.