TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: The Congress has alleged a major scam in the organization of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) 2012, amounting to Rs 10 crore and demanded that the government table the details of expenses on the event during the state legislative assembly session beginning from Wednesday.
Speaking at a press conference at Congress House, Monday, party spokesman Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco said the party will raise the matter during the assembly session until the government comes clean on the scam.
“Entertainment Society of Goa set aside all guidelines and awarded contracts worth crores of rupees to a few select contractors. We will raise the matter in the assembly…” he said basing his claim on RTI replies.
He alleged that government gave the contract on inflated rates to non-Goan artistes whereas local artistes were paid meagre amounts.
“An amount of Rs 2 crore was spent on the cultural performances of non-Goan artistes but a negligible amount of hardly Rs 15 lakhs was paid to local artistes,” he added.
The party also alleged that ESG has been pressurized not to give information under RTI pertaining to other expenditure incurred on travel, accommodation, food stalls, and festival executives to cover up the misdeeds.
Reginaldo, who is the Curtorim legislator, said the party will keep a close watch on the happenings at IFFI 2013 to ensure proper procedures are followed.
