TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: In an attempt to bring transparency in the functioning of the bureaucracy and reduce avenues for corruption, the office of Goa Lokayukta has called upon all public functionaries in the State to submit a list of their assets and liabilities for the financial year 2013-14 by June 30.
The post of Goa Lokayukta is vacant since October 2013.
The Lokayukta is bound to take action as per the Goa Lokayukta Act, if the officials fail to file their returns within the specified time.
Mathew Samuels, Secretary, Goa Lokayukta said that all public functionaries as defined in section 2 (q) of the Goa Lokayukta Act, 2011, are being directed to file their respective statement of assets and liabilities for the financial year that ended on March 31 by June 30.
“Lokayukta is an institution and it does not matter whether the Lokayukta post is vacant to act as per the statutory provisions,” he said.
Chief Minister; Ministers; Members of State Legislative Assembly; president; vice-president; chairman or vice-chairman; secretary; managing director of a local authority, or government company established under a statute and owned by the government of Goa, or institutions receiving grants from the State government have to submit their statements of assets and liabilities to the Lokayukta in the prescribed form.
When asked, Samuels said that failure to submit their (legislators/public functionaries) returns would attract action under Section 21 of the Goa Lokayukta Act.
As per the Act, if no such statements were received by the Lokayukta from public functionaries within the time specified, the Lokayukta shall make a report to that effect to the competent authority and send a copy of the report to the public functionary concerned. Within two months of such report, if the person does not submit the statement, the Lokayukta can publish the names of such persons in newspapers and file a report with the Governor.
For the financial year 2012-13, all the 40 MLAs and other public functionaries were directed to submit their assets. A grace period of one month was granted after they failed to submit the list of assets within the time allotted.
The post of Lokayukta is vacant since October 2013 after resignation of state’s first Lokayukta Justice (retd) Dr B Sudershan Reddy. Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has said that he has already directed Chief Secretary to shortlist certain names for the post.
Mathew Samuels, Secretary, Goa Lokayukta said that all public functionaries as defined in section 2 (q) of the Goa Lokayukta Act, 2011, are being directed to file their respective statement of assets and liabilities for the financial year that ended on March 31 by June 30
