TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: The Congress party has filed a complaint with the Vigilance Department against the officials of Entertainment Society of Goa (ESG) including its chairman and vice chairman, demanding an investigation into the tender allocation for the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), 2014, citing gross irregularities in the process.
The complaint, which has been forwarded to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Arun Jaitley, has threatened to approach the court if the Vigilance Department fails to act on the complaint in time.
Complainant and general secretary of Congress Durgadas Kamat has alleged loss of around Rs 3 crore to the state exchequer. Kamat said that ESG scrapped three to four tenders, as the procedures laid down in the tender documents failed to facilitate their favourite bidders.
Pointing to one gross irregularity, Kamat said that the tender to select a travel agency for IFFI 2014 has been awarded to a firm identified as a defaulter by Air India. “The misappropriation of the funds at IFFI runs into crores of rupees and this could not have been done without the active connivance from top executives and political masters,” he said.
Kamat has demanded that the role of all officials and executive members responsible for the conduct of IFFI 2014 be investigated. “All the tenders issued in connection with IFFI should be investigated and the details placed in the public domain as early as possible,” he demanded.
