SURAJ NANDREKAR
PANJIM: The Herald has access to certain crucial documents which shockingly reveal that the amount spent on salaries of foreign managers, engineers and other staff along with a host of Indian staff with mind boggling salaries, appointed by the Nihon Suido-led consortium of consultants, was higher than the consultancy fee of Rs 70 crore given to them for the now controversial water supply and sewerage project paid by JICA funds. Nihon, Louis Berger, NJS consultants and Shah Technical constituted the consortium.
Former chief minister Digambar Kamat and former PWD minister Churchill Alemao have been named by key witnesses, including officials of Louis Berger, as having received kickbacks to clear the consultancy deal.
The salaries of some officials are between Rs 18 and Rs 25 lakh per month (yes you got that right). Project insiders told Herald that many of the western and Japanese officials, with these salaries for water supply, sewerage and capacity development have either never been or were seldom seen. So who are the they? Do they really exist? And what has been their contribution to justify such salaries. And most importantly if the salary component of Rs 75.49 crore (*see box) was more than official consultancy fee of Rs 70 crore paid to JICA, were there more funds diverted to the consultants, because it is absolutely impossible that the consortium of four consultants would have done this at a loss.
Let’s meet some of these crorepatis, some of whom earn identical salaries. Philip Field, the “Project Manager” for all the Water Supply projects under the JICA project, earns (in INR) Rs 26.5 lakh a month. He is from the Nihon Suido consultants. He gets the same salary as Bert William Server, a structural engineer from the Louis Berger Group. Other fat cats earning Rs 15 lakh or more per month include Tonu Humano, Takeemasa Mamiya and Hayashi Akira, each getting Rs 18.31 lakh per month.
In the sewerage side (JICA funded water supply and sewerage projects), project manager Kuo Miwa earns Rs 20.01 lakh per month while three others Sempei Nakanishi, Barrie Bently and Kenji Takayangi earn Rs 17.95 lakh each just short of Dr Milind Wable who earns Rs 18.9 lakh a month.
In stark contrast, Indian officials on the project appointed by the same consultants in the consortium, got paid far less but at par with the average salary of many CEOs of private sector firms, ranging between Rs 3-5 lakh per month
Since the work on consultancy began in 2011, the salary bill on the water project has been Rs 28.89 cr, for sewerage Rs 16.83 cr and for capacity building Rs 19.34 cr has been spent.
Besides a bill of Rs 10.40 cr has been shown for payment of support staff.
The total salary bill has so far been Rs 75,49,28,177.
When Herald spoke to some experts in the PWD, they seemed shocked with the figures shown to them.
“The salary of project manager in the consultancy is 20 times more than that of the Principal Chief Engineer in PWD,” said an official, who is connected with the project but says he had no knowledge of the huge amounts paid.
Another official, speaking on condition of anonymity, says “these salaries seem hypothetical and may be inflated figures shown by the consultancy companies just to show they have carried out work at a loss.”
The official says, “Otherwise how is it possible to pay more salaries than the contract amount. Perhaps they may have never employed those persons or never paid these huge salaries. It can be a case of ghost workers.”
The official says the Crime Branch should investigate into these as it may be a ploy to avoid taxes.
