I am to refer to a news items captioned “government to organize city carnival this year due to poll code”. Dilip Parulekar, Minister for Tourism needs to be congratulated for taking this bold decision in the interest of Goa and Goans. CCP nor any of its officials should be involved in organizing this year’s Carnival in Panjim nor it should be included in the Committee since the Mayor, CCP is contesting the by-election of Panjim. Even in the future, they should not be involved since organization of carnival does not come under their domain.
Incidentally, the accounts of carnival 2014 are yet to be presented to Panjim Carnival Committee for approval. It is alleged that lot of manipulations and illegalities have taken place and that quotations have been obtained after the carnival was over. Last year, it was not people’s carnival and most of the it was handled by an event management firm engaged by CCP, which happened to be closely linked to one of the officer of CCP. Government should take note of the facts that it had sanctioned funds towards carnival in addition to a lot of sponsorship received by CCP. Unless proper accounts are given, no one should be left scot free.
Joaquim Teles, Panaji
