Margao: Following the call given by the Chief Minister Pramod Sawant to all the NGO’s, requesting them to come for discussion instead of filing cases against government projects, Shadow Council for Margao has requested the Chief Minister for an appointment to discuss the Misuse and Misappropriation of public funds* by virtue of the tendered work for “Construction of a Nallah behind ESI Hospital Margao”, by the Water Resources Department, Div III.
In a letter to the Chief Minister, the SCM Convener Mr. Savio Coutinho requested the CM for an appointment at the earliest convenience of the Chief Minister.
SCM Convener Savio Coutinho stated that they have been consistently raising the gross misuse and misappropriation of public funds by the WRD department. “We have filed complaints before every possible forum connected with the construction of this nallah behind ESI Hospital Margao, however non of the concerned authorities seem to have taken cognizance of the complaints, and the work still continues “, Mr. Coutinho lamented.
The WRD department seems to be “conveniently” unaware of the requirement for the *improvement in the Hydraulics of the nallah from old Railway station to the ESI Hospital*, which infact is the actual cause for flooding along the old station road. But instead, they prefer to spend nearly Rs 81 crores of public funds to construct a nallah to benefit private real Estate development, SCM charged.
The road side drains along the old station road, empty into a nallah which passes below the railway tracks, and flows downstream* behind ESI Hospital.
“The same amount of 81 lakhs could well be used to construct/ improve the nallah from ESI Hospital road to the old Railway station but *the people connected with this work will not do so because VESTED INTERESTS are far more important than PUBLIC INTERESTS”*, Mr. Coutinho stated.
We hope that the Chief Minister will grant us an appointment so that we can present our case to him and explain the facts about our compliant, Mr. Coutinho informed.
It is very much true that the government wastes a lot of time and public money in defending case’s filed by NGO’S. In this regard we would like to appeal to the government, that a law be made, *that in the event of any such matter being confirmed illegal/irregular by the courts of law, than all the expenses incurred in defending such frauds should be recovered from those who were responsible for creating such a fraud,” Coutinho suggested.
“The government should realize that NGO’s/activists spend their money to protect government funds, while those who are responsible for the frauds get the opportunity to spend taxpayers money to defend their wrongs”, Mr. Coutinho said.
