Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai has directed Minister for Labour and Employment Kumar Belbase to resign after Belbase was caught on tape asking for bribes.

“He has been accused of corruption, and I’ve told him that he is morally obliged to resign,” said the PM. He added that if Belbase didn’t resign by Tuesday, he would be sacked from office.

On Friday, various news media reported that Belbase was secretly filmed at a meeting with nine prospective manpower-agency owners and was caught asking Rs 250,000 from each of them to complete their companies’ registration.

In October 2011, the PM had directed the ministry to halt all registration processes until better mechanisms for monitoring and regulation were adopted. Earlier in March, the then Minister for Labour and Transport Sarita Giri was sacked by the PM on corruption charges.