PANJIM: Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar once again defended his BJP legislators’ Football World Cup tour to Brazil, calling it a “personal” tour, saying that MLAs “would pay from their pocket.”
Reports suggest that one MLA – Fisheries Minister Avertano Furtado has paid Rs 3 lakh till now, while the three MLAs have paid Rs 2 lakh each.
The legislators have promised to clear the payments within the next 30 to 45 days.
Furtado, MLAs Carlos Almeida, Benjamin Silva and Glen Ticlo went to watch the World Cup matches for which the bills have risen to Rs 89 lakh. The tour was initially sought to be pushed through as an official tour but had to be subsequently converted into a private one after intense media and public pressure.
Parrikar told the Assembly that the debate on the expenditure by four legislators who visited Brazil should end now as “their trip was personal.”
“They will pay the money back to the State, so it now becomes a private trip. The members have agreed to pay the money and accordingly they are paying it,” the Chief Minister said, arguing that the government had booked the tickets for these legislators before the controversy erupted, and would have lost the money if the tickets were cancelled.
“The money is not spent by government,” Parrikar claimed.
