Team Herald
MARGAO: The news with regards to the missing files from the Margao Municipal Council (MMC) is nothing new as it has come to light that those with vested interest have been creating major hurdles in putting a full stop to the fiasco.
Even MMC Chief Officer Agnelo Fernandes feels that vested interest amongst the staff of technical section and outside the administrative boundaries have caused the mess with regards to handling the files related to various works.
Margao residents have called for digitisation of the files and fixing the responsibilities.
Herald revealed that there is a massive racket operating within the council demanding bribes from the concerned parties for which files are “hidden” deliberately.
It may be recalled that the recent council meeting witnessed a ruckus on the issue of missing files, and even a Junior Engineer was exposed for “hiding” the files deliberately.
“The files are not missing from the Margao municipality but records have shown that they’ve been hidden,” claimed Adv Seoula Vas from Fatorda while speaking to Herald.
“This has been a common practice by elected representatives for the last decade which needs to be plugged. The one and only one reason is the files are ‘hidden’. It is because as many whistleblowers have informed us in public interest that there is a long line of ‘bribe collectors’ going up to top levels of those who float their panels of candidates for council elections,” she alleged.
The young advocate said, “The MMC chairperson made a statement that all corruption will come to an end under his leadership but he has failed as expected.”
Another advocate Snehal Damodra Onskar alleged that there are others too who are have vested interest in the files, besides the officials from the technical section.
“Unless this practice stops nothing good can be expected, as we have come across people complaining that the files of non-supporters of the councillors are ‘hidden’,” Snehal claimed.
Former chairperson Savio Coutinho said, “No doubt the story of missing files is not new, but it is rarely a case that any particular file will go missing without some vested interest not being the cause.”
“Many times files are marked to one official in the system; however these land on some other officials’ tables. And this happens as many peons deployed in various sections are unable to read the noting, as they are often field workers who land inside the office building through the influence of some political leader,” he alleged. He called for compulsory updating the registers based on the movement of files.
MMC CO Agnelo Fernandes feels that without vested interest the incidents of missing files cannot happen.
“How come the files go missing is a big question mark for me, being a Chief Officer. Definitely there is a vested interest in the ‘missing/hiding’ the files. There are many instances that files have gone missing once cleared by me,” he said.
The Chief Officer feels that file tracking system and digitisation of files once implemented would put an end to this mess.
