WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 2024
Team Herald
PANJIM: Aldona MLA Adv Carlos Alvares Ferreira hit out at the government over the increasing crime rate and the poor state of tourism that the State is currently experiencing. He pointed out that the tourism sector has painted a sorry picture that wasn’t even touched upon by the Governor.
Speaking about crime, Adv Ferreira said that the officers at the ground level proved incapable of handling the challenges faced by Goa. He alleged that good police officers are transferred to GRP or for security or to police training school and raw inexperienced officers are being brought to man the police stations, who he added are not in a position to handle crime or prevent crime, forget head investigations.
“The Sonali Phogat case created national headlines. Drug related matters where we have Hyderabad Police coming to Goa. It is completely shameful. DGP and IGP are good officers but down the line the system does not work. They cannot handle the situation,” he said.
“We are a state which welcomes tourists. After mining, the next (big industry) is tourism. But the kind of tourists which are coming -- this riff-raff. We don't want. They are cooking on the roads, drive in any manner which they desire. They are hanging out of vehicles. They do stunts on vehicles. Even today there was a photo of how they were hanging out of a taxi. We don't want this kind of tourists,” Adv Ferreira said. “We had quality tourists and Goa was known all over as an international destination with tourists coming in chartered flights. Today they are coming in Trax and Tempos and they don't even contribute to our economy and I think that the government and the Governor should have taken care to address this situation and rectify these big flaws which are there,” the added.
He also highlighted how, by the Chief Minister’s own admission, there were rampant scams in waste management at the local level.
“I wrote to the Chief Secretary. The Chief Minister has said that he has seen people have pilfered funds and I have called upon the Chief Secretary to have an FIR registered. Book these people, arrest them, name them and shame them. We don't want another labour gate scam where there were BJP functionaries collecting money as labourers including one ZP member of Bardez taluka,” Adv Ferreira said.
