Team Goemkarponn
MARGAO: Shadow Council for Margao filed it’s 3rd Complaint, before the Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant, the Chief Secretary/Vigilance Secretary and the DMA over unabated frauds at the Margao Municipal Council, stating that the reasons for Recurring Frauds was their Inaction inspite of complaints filed before by SCM.
Expressing utter disappointment, the SCM submitted yet another complaint to bring before them yet another fraud in the Sopo Collection, through which ₹ 2,39,800/- has been misappropriated.
The letter refreshed the CM, CS and DMA of the various irregularities involved in the Sopo Collection which they alleged was a benami contract executed by the Margao Municipal Council with a Civil Contractor, while the actual Collection was done by some other individuals who are henchmen of local Politician’s.
The Margao Municipal Council intentionally and fraudulently skipped 2 important and mandatory conditions while executing the tender/contract,
viz. i). Installment Delay payment penalty and ii). Enhancement/Increase in instalment amount in the event of extention of Contract, which has always been a conditions in this tender it was pointed.
The SCM charged that these two omissions had led the Council to loose around ₹. 5,40,000/- towards the hike in instalment amount upon the extention of Contract for 3 months, and an additional amount of ₹ 3,50,000/- as late payment penalty.
Through our earlier letters we had cautioned all the three authorities that the Margao Municipal Council was on its way to manipulate the Sopo Collection contract and grant a waiver to the contractor, which waiver is in total violation of clause No. “6.d” of the contract”, Mr. Coutinho said. The contract condition “6.d” very clearly mandated that the Sopo contractor would not have the rights of Collection from the Feast fairs, yet an aggregate amount of 2,39,800/- was waived off illegally by the Council, he added.
Mr. Coutinho also highlighted that the Council lost a huge amount of over ₹. 15,00,000/- which was siphoned off by an LDC of MMC, and is yet to be recovered, while the police department is yet to trace his whereabouts, scm lamented.
“Now, due to your insensitivity to this brazen loot of public fund’s, all the losses cited cited by us have failed to come back to the Municipal treasury. And in addition, the Council has without any fear misappropriated public fund’s by granting an illegal waiver of ₹ 2,39,800/-, Mr. Coutinho charged.
The SCM in its letter very bluntly said that as we make this communication to you, but wonder whether we should very shamefully accept the fact that we may still not find any action forthcoming on your part, to pin this fraud and recover the loss to the public exchequer. All that your office does is forward the complaints to some lower office calling for action and report; which report, in reality never comes, the letter reads.
The SCM called upon the Chief Minister to take this matter seriously and take steps to recover the public fund’s and confirm his commitment to intolerance to corruption in government offices.
SCM warned that failure of the authorities to act will compell us to approach the court of law.
We made this written appeal for action based on the Hon’ble CM’S request through the media that NGO’s/Petitioners should approach the government first, before filing cases, the letter concluded.
