Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
Claim
Viral video allegedly shows an emotional speech of sacked Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) Chief Kulman Ghising after his dismissal.
Fact
Viral video shows Ghising’s farewell after his first stint as NEA chief.
A video allegedly showing sacked executive director of Nepal Electricity Authority Kulman Ghising addressing his farewell after he was dismissed from his post is going viral on TikTok.
A Cabinet meeting on March 24 dismissed Ghising, who had only four months remaining in his tenure, from his position as NEA’s managing director. He shot to fame after he transformed Nepal’s power sector and ended decades of prolonged power cut by prudently managing the NEA’s resources during his first stint as NEA chief from 2016 to 2020.. He was reappointed as NEA’s executive director on August 9, 2021.
Against this backdrop, TikTok user @thirendrakhatri posted a video showing Kulman Ghising speaking at a formal event. “It feels a little weird while bidding farewell. A little difficult situation. I had the experience while I was at Chilime. In fact, I left Chilime without saying good bye. I returned from there without even being able to share my work. Let no one take it to heart that I might have hurt someone while working in the interest of the institution.” Text superimposed on the video reads, “Let’s say, down with the KP Oli government. How could we see the person who gave us the light, people should rise up now. The government has dismissed NEA’s Kulman Ghising.” The video also carries a small clip of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli alongside Ghising’s speech.
The video posted on March 25 has garnered 113.2k likes, 41914 users have shared it and 3613 people have commented until the last count.
The archived version of the TikTok video can be seen here.
Newschecker found the claim to be misleading.
Fact Check /Verification
To check the veracity of the claim made in the viral video, Newschecker took several key frames from the viral video and ran reverse searches on them. A Google reverse search on a frame led us to a video, dated September 15, 2020, posted on the Facebook page of Clickmandu online. The video frame bore close resemblance to a viral clip as we noticed Ghising’s clothes and garland he is wearing matched..
The video title read, “Kulman Ghising speaking during his farewell.”
Taking a clue from it, we searched YouTube by using relevant keywords and found another video, dated September 15, 2020, posted on the YouTube channel named Sahayatri online. On checking the video, we found that the video from 3.51-minute onwards exactly matched the viral clip. The 22-minute video showed Kulman Ghising’s speech during the farewell after his first tenure as NEA Chief.
Further, we found an article, dated September 15, 2020, published on the Himalayan Times online. The article was about the formal farewell of Ghising after he completed his four-year tenure as NEA Chief.
We also checked if Ghising has organised any press meet after his dismissal. However, we didn’t find any reports. We only found reports of Ghising lodging a petition at the Supreme Court, claiming that his removal from the post was unlawful.
Thus, our findings clearly indicated that the viral video shows an old clip of Ghising speaking at his farewell after his first stint.
Conclusion
No, sacked NEA Chief Kulman Ghising has not been given an emotional speech after he was dismissed from his post. The viral video is from September 2020 when he was given a farewell after his first tenure.
Result: False
Sources
Clickmandu /Facebook , September 15, 2020
Sahayatri Online /YouTube, September 15, 2020
Himalayan Times, September 16, 2020
Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
