Goa A Haven For Nefarious Activities?
Corruption in Goa has reached its peak, in the last decade or thereabouts asserts FREDDY DIAS
If you enjoyed reading this article, you can help support our journalism by adding OHeraldo as a preferred source.
The Union Home Ministry, New Delhi, has
started compiling data regarding movable
and immovable properties, shares and other
assets held by the officers of central and state
governments including Police, Customs, Port
Trusts and other central and state undertakings.
The data collection has been extended to cover
up even properties held by wives and other relations
of the officers. ‘Goa’s laws consider husband-
wife properties, as one entity!
The information collected from the Home Departments
of various states, particularly through
Vigilance Cells, is being computerized to keep
watch over certain officials and politicians in
connection with various allegations being made
regarding the growing corruption in the public
sector, even affecting the security of the Country.
In Goa, there is a law already in place, to book
corrupt public men, including politicians.
Huge amounts of ‘black money’ laundering is
being done in places like Goa, Mumbai, Pune,
Bangalore and Cochin in the western zone, whilst
Kolkata, Hyderabad and Chennai in the eastern
sector of the country. In the northern states, New
Delhi has emerged as the big centre for black
money laundering. It has come to the notice of
the Union Home Ministry, that smugglers, drug
peddlers, human traffickers, bootleggers and others
in the underworld mafia, have close connections
with the politicians, bureaucrats, police,
customs officers in different states.
In Goa too, the information is being collected
about the wealth of officers and politicians so
that their underworld connections will be known.
A large number politicians, bureaucrats and other
officers are being investigated for holding huge
amounts of money and other assets in their
own names and in the names of their close relatives,
besides ‘benami’ holdings.
Corruption in the state government departments
and some central government undertakings
in Goa has reached its peak, in the last
decade or thereabouts, and large sums of black
money belonging to criminal elements from
within the state and from outside, are being
freely deposited in various banks, particularly
co-operative banks, with the help of government
functionaries in wanton violation of Income
tax rules and regulations.
Huge amounts of money belonging to smugglers,
drug peddlers, human traffickers and others
indulging in similar criminal activities, some criminals
even being from New Delhi and elsewhere,
besides those from Goa, are unlawfully kept hidden
in banks and other financial institutions, which
have been increasingly mushrooming in the State,
in the last few years. The laundering of huge
amounts of the black money in Goa is said to be
the primary cause of the rampant corruption and
constant instability in the governance of the State.
Realizing the phenomenon, the Union Government
had sent a special team of revenue officials
from Bangalore and Mumbai to investigate certain
tax evasion cases and corruption matters in Goa
that have come to the notice of the authorities
in New Delhi. It is quite known that some residents
of Goa have emerged as big financiers
of Hindi films in Mumbai.
Besides, the large number of sophisticated cars
and other fancy vehicles sold in Goa, is a clear indication
that people are really moneyed. Most
of these vehicles are registered in the names of
relatives and friends, by the actual owners in a
bid to avoid getting detected for tax evasion. This
too has caught the attention of the authorities.
During the last few months, the special investigation
team has unearthed large sums of
money stacked in certain banks and financial
institutions by politicians, bureaucrats, customs
officers, police officers and even senior members
of judiciary, in their own individual accounts
as well as in the accounts of their
close relatives. In fact, the investigators have
managed to collect a substantial amount of
concrete material evidence by way of bank
records and other relevant documents in a large
number of specific cases wherein crores of rupees
have been hidden in financial institutions,
particularly the co-operative banking institutions,
in violation of income tax norms and
other laws and regulations, by people holding
high positions in different departments of the
state administration, including the judiciary.
Besides the large sums of unaccounted
money stacked in banks and other financial institutions,
some of these high-profiled individuals
have cornered prime landed properties worth
crores of rupees in various parts of Goa and
other Konkan areas of Maharashtra. Investigation
also revealed that general cases, of both criminal
and civil nature, in various courts in the state,
were not getting proper action due to corruption
in the law-enforcement agencies, the bureaucracy
and the judiciary.
In the recent years, the prices of land and
other properties in Goa have shot up giving indication
to the authorities that large amount
of money is being invested by black money holders
from other parts of the country and even
abroad in this tiny state. Officials of the Enforcement
Directorate (ED), presently probing
into the properties purchased by foreigners in
Goa, have pointed out that majority of the 350
and odd properties were purchased in violation
of Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).
According to ED officials, 50 companies with
foreign directors and 300 and odd individual
cases are being investigated for FEMA violations.
The investigators have not ruled out the possibility
of money invested illegally from foreign tax havens
to purchase properties in Goa in connivance with
those at the helm of the state administration. Investigation
is also being carried out to pin point
whether the money invested in property purchase
is part of proceeds of the illicit drug trade, which
is the single most important source of black
money generation in the state.
Meanwhile, during the last month or so, the
Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested
several officers of Customs & Central Excise
(C&CE) in Goa for their involvement in under
valuation of import duties on three imported
consignments of M/s Adani Exports (now named
Adani Enterprises) Ahmedabad, thus causing
the government a loss of Rs 1.07 crores. The
CBI initiated the action in connection with a
criminal case registered on April 25, 2008,
under Section 120-B read with Section 420 of
the IPC and Section 13(2) read with 13(1)(d)
of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988,
against ten officials of the C&CE and some private
parties namely M/s Adani Enterprises,
Ganesh Benzoplast Ltd, Mumbai, and a clearing
firm M/s J.A.F. Leitao & Sons, Goa.
The charge is that the ten C&CE officers in
conspiracy with the private parties, dishonestly
and by abuse of their official position, facilitated
importation by undervaluing import duties during
2005-06, on two consignments of naphtha and
one consignment of furnace oil. The scam detected
was to the tune of Rs 1.07 crores, of
which Rs 88 lakhs were in the form of excise
tax evasion and the rest was regarding warehouse
facilities. The CBI officials are, however,
suspecting that the racket of undervaluation of
import duties on importation of different consignments
in Goa has been going on for quite
a long time, and that the present case is Just
a tip of a huge iceberg of corruption involving
the C&CE officers in the State.
=======
Mother nature’s treasures
By Marc de Souza
The grass is always greener between the bricks and stones,
coming from the concrete cracks or right in the middle of
the flower bed!
Ignoring this fact of life, we embark on the heartbreaking and
back breaking adventure of trying to make lawns look like brightgreen
indoor-outdoor carpeting. We try everything from
weed killers to complete ground enrichment programmes. And
what do we get for all our troubles? The opportunity to spend the
lazy crazy evenings working to cut down what we have encouraged
to grow up!
And that is only if our programming worked. If it did not work,
in addition to mowing we also have to start enriching again, trying
to “enhance” all that brown stuff that was supposed to turn green.
Somewhere it all seem to fit in with the well-publicized love for
the green! And, as I said before, no matter what we do to it, the
grass always grows best only in those places where we do not
want it. Each blade of grass keeps thrusting up beside its neighbour,
vying for footing, jostling for light, for sun-warmth as it prepares
its seed sheath already to acknowledge its destiny. Between the
spears, purple ground-ivy weaves, claiming space. And golden dandelion-
coins reflect the sun as they, too, crowd the grass for standing-
room only. But may be this pre-occupation or occupation of
grass growing is worth it after all. Even a 20-foot-square plot of
grass supplies enough oxygen to keep an adult breathing. If combed
that same lawn would contain millions of separate plants. It is
frustrating to know that all these plants are busily pumping clean
air and water into our atmosphere almost as fast as we are polluting
it!
The abundance of sun and rain foster the growth of thousands
of species or plants, flowers and trees, each with its own mechanism
for survival. There are flowers which give off certain smell to attract
insects to pollinate them.
So, as you cut the green grass, grieve over the brown and pull
all that in between the stones, ask yourself if you work as hard as
the grass does to replenish the air around you. Or have you been
polluting it?
We have overwhelming evidence that we are in the midst of
pollution crisis. Alarms have begun to sound. It has become more
evident how many deaths are linked directly to the level of carbon
emission in the air we breathe.
When I look into my heart I find several factors that block a
more effective response to our suffering earth. I like our modern
conveniences. But they cost us mightily in terms of the earth’s resources.
Our squandering of natural resources and our abuse even
of other humans in the process is part of our way of life. Changing
it will be a vast undertaking.
First there is simple laziness and lack of attention. Laziness,
negligence, rationalisation and fear are all habits of the heart that
reveal how much is needed conversion. Conversion begins with
little steps. Are you one of the brown-and-downers who never see
the bright side? Or are you one of the sunny-side ups who cheer
and encourage everyone else? Were you programmed to look at
the dark side instead of seeing the light? No matter how your
‘roots’ were fertilized, it is never late to change. Human beings
can reprogramme themselves if they really and truly want to do it.
I guess that is the secret of all success – really and truly wanting
to do it.
