Tax arrears, non-collection of garbage fees stall CMC work

Cuncolim Municipal Council is striving hard to make a sustainable Balance sheet so that they can manage the financial position of Council. One of the premier and resourceful Municipalities is finding difficult to garner finances for day to day expenses. Coffers of the council are empty as government has stopped giving development funds to the CMC. Huge tax recovery arrears are pending and to make things worse government.

Furthermore, there are outstanding rent arrears pending from the new multipurpose hall complex.  

The Council has decided to collect garbage fees with trade tax from shopkeepers and other establishments but some big hotel and restaurant owners are not paying garbage fee and the Council has failed to take action against these establishments. To resolve these issues, the Council wanted to hike various fees and taxes. The Council is planning to add property tax and wants to raise commercial and house tax.

Cuncolkars are blaming Councillors and officers for not having control on their expenses. The residents are questioning when Cuncolkars will get good administration and provide good services to locals.

For instance, the Anti-corruption Bureau and Crime Branch department have registered cases against the Council for misappropriation of funds.

Auditors have made harsh remarks in their report for council’s failure to collect huge tax arrears. According to an Audit report there is huge recovery is pending audit report pointing fingers on the lethargic behaviour of recovery officers. The report says about Rs one and half crore is pending by means of different taxes like house tax, trade tax, commercial tax and property tax.

The audit report says for last several years the Council did not take any concrete steps to recover the huge arrears in tax. The report also remarked that recovery section of Council is lethargic and stubborn. Neither the officers, nor the employees and the councillors are interested in recovery of Council assets it is alleged. Audit report suggested strict action be taken against those employees and officers who failed to recover the dues and had not performed their duties.

Auditors are blaming the Council for failure in collecting recovery. However, Chief Officer C Pandharinath Naik has another story to narrate. CO Naik does not agree with the Audit report figures as far as recovery is concerned. CO Naik told Herald that recovery figures have a technical hitch. According to CO Naik, the Council is getting about Rs18 lakh per year from Goa Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) as compensation of house tax and other taxes collected from Cuncolim Industrial Estate that is located in at the IDC.

IDC is collecting all the taxes since they have single window system. IDC, in return, compensates the council by deducting 10 per cent amount as their share.

The Council got all the compensation from IDC but due to technical problems they could not include this tax in the account books and the computerised system shows this as arrears which the Council has already received. Thus if the Council defence is to be believed, they have succeeded in collecting majority of arrears. 

However, the fact remains that the Cuncolim Municipal Council is one of the richest councils in the state but still they cannot manage their finances. It is hard to believe why the Council which has huge financial resources is fighting to manage their balance sheet, say residents.  The main reason of this problem is huge work force employed by the council. Fifty percent of council budget goes for payments only. The Council is spending more than Rs2.25 crore per year only for wages and payments. Beside these issues, the Council is finding a hard time to manage the garbage treatment plant expenses, municipal vehicle expenses and other miscellaneous expenses.

In last three years, the CMC did not get any development grants from the government. The Council is getting about Rs55 lakh from Excise department as Octroi compensation.

Residents lamented that the Council seems to be preoccupied with fights between the councillors and COs and major issues like the non functioning garbage treatment plant, faulty door to door collection is being overlooked. Failure to recover arrears is being ignored and development works are at a standstill.