Margao : Shadow Council for Margao demands for verification of workers provided to MMC by private agencies, for door to door waste collection. Council pays workers on per head per day basis, causing a monthly drain-off to the tune of nearly 25 lakhs.
Shadow Council revealed that 2 agencies namely Bapu Environmental Social Service Agency and Golden Globe Agency are billing the Council for supposedly providing over 150 workers and draining the Municipal treasury to the tune of nearly 25 lakhs per month.
Convener of SCM Savio Coutinho stated that the Council cannot absolve from its responsibility into verifying the number of workers engaged through the 2 agency’s as the agency’s are paid on per head per day basis. The Council for obvious reasons seems to conveniently ignore the complaints of people around the city who have issues over the irregular waste collection, though the agency’s get fully paid.
We have evidence over how the agencies rotate the same workers in different areas, but charge the Council on per day per head basis,Coutinho charged.
“Previously, we had exposed a scam wherein one of the agencies provided only 30 workers per day, but billed the Council for 45 workers. This amounted to nearly 2 lakhs extra bill per month. The MMC did a mere formality of filing a police complaint but no action was taken against the agency that tried to defraud the Municipal treasury”, Coutinho lamented.
“We were in utter shock when we came to know that the same agency whose services were terminated in Fatorda, found favor in Margao, and was rewarded with a bigger job of providing 65 workers as compared to the earlier 45 workers”, he stated further.
SCM asserted that they shall continue with their resolve to protect the taxpayers money and shall not hesitate to approach appropriate forums to seek remedy when the Council fails to act on the same.
