Why should govt corp be corrupt?
The Chief Minister’s pronouncement that ruled out the formation of Goa Mining Corporation, may have come as a rude shock to the Goa People’s Mining Forum and small mining stakeholders, who have been at the receiving end of this 18 month pulverizing private sector manufactured crisis. Mining workers have always been at the receiving end when there was a conspiracy of silence over decades, since mining companies owned newspapers and not a single mining strike or accident was reported in the local press. It was only O Heraldo and later its English avatar that highlighted illegal labour practices, lockouts and mining strikes and gave a voice to mining labour.
The Supreme Court appointed expert panel had recommended to Goa government to form a mining corporation or a public sector company in view of large-scale ‘illegalities’ by private miners. The Supreme Court has refused to go into policy issues in the illegal mining case and left it to the state government for executive action.
The chief minister however has refrained from elaborating the reason for not forming a mineral development corporation, like the central Mineral Exploration Corporation Limited, saying he doesn’t want “one more source of corruption.”
At the ideological level it may seem that the chief minister’s utterance is in tune with global privatization trends, and that Parrikar is revisiting basic questions about government’s role, what it can and cannot do, and how best it can do it.
However an analysis of his other policy decisions does not show that he is here to reinvent, downsize, privatize, devolve, decentralize or deregulate the government, to free it from bureaucracy and red tape, since no such measures have been introduced in the departments.
If the Chief Minister feels that corporations are corrupt, then his utterance could imply that even under him, corporations such as Economic Development Corporation, Kadamba Transport Corporation continue to be corrupt and should be dissolved immediately and privatised. Secondly, it could also imply that Parrikar’s assuming the reins of the State has not rid the State of rampant corruption –the major point of his pre-election propaganda which catapulted him to power and dethroned the Congress government.
A government corporation has the power of government and the flexibility of a private company and is able to provide a market-oriented public service and generate substantial revenues, unlike traditional departments. Several factors clinch the argument for a Goa Mineral Development Corporation in Goa –one, to safeguard sustainable development of the state’s mineral resources and avoid overexploitation; two, save the environment from destruction and save agriculture which is the first victim in Eastern Goa which destroys many livelihoods; three to plough the massive profits generated from minin, back into the economy and fund social and human development especially of Goa’s poor; four to protect the rights of mining workers by giving them job security, with all benefits and end the ‘labour contractors raj’; and ensure intergenerational equity by conserving Goa for future generations.
The corporation has to be headed by professionals, not politicians. The mining affected would want the government to explain why it does not favour the state’s resources being in government’s hands, since it is a trustee of the people. The chief minister has to explain why he prefers to maintain the leases in private hands, many of them from outside Goa, inspite of they heaping a gargantum crisis on the state and its mining people and seriously jeopardizing its economy and development. Mining dependents may wish to know why their Chief Minister wishes to give out doles to workers, truck owners and why he does not show immediate interest in prosecuting the culprits. Mining dependents may wish to know why their government does not want to take over the mineral resources of the state on which the entire economy of the state largely depends and give them back their rights and livelihoods.
It is anyone’s guess whether mine owners from the state, whether from Goa or outside, have been historically funding parties, making and unmaking governments. The BJP led government may has to prove otherwise!
