TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
MARGAO: Margao Municipal Council’s controversial e-tenders have reached the court of the government as an internal civic probe revealed that some of the tendered works were executed, either partially or fully, by the PWD or municipality.
Questions are now being asked whether the government will order an independent probe into the e-tender as the MMC Chief Officer has sought directions to carry out the tendered works which have not been executed and are clear in nature.
When Herald contacted the Director of Municipal Administration, Elvis Gomes, he confirmed having received the report on the controversial e-tender, but hastened to add that the government will take a final call on how to go about the matter.
In the report MMC Chief Officer Deepali Naik admitted that the works which are “partly” carried out will be verified and deleted from the estimation. She, however, pointed out that drains that are shown to be partially existing are of small length, whereas the work proposal is for the entire length, which will take care of draining of the entire area in the respective wards.
The Chief Officer further asked the government to drop the works where land acquisition is either not done or carried out by other agencies.
Incidentally, the Chief Officer drew attention of the government in the report that the works which are taken up by other agencies are carried out without bringing to the notice of the Council and without obtaining NOC from the Council. Besides, the report pointed out that some of the works were taken up after the e-tender on September 30, 2013.
Interestingly, the inquiry report has termed as absolutely malafide the allegation that the process of e-tendering the work was hastened in view of the no-confidence motion against the then Chairperson. “The works were tendered as per the identification of the works and to ensure that the works were completed before the forthcoming monsoon season”, the MMC CO said in her report.
There’s been a demand in many quarters for the scrapping of the e-tendering and institution of an independent probe by the Vigilance Dept to go into the entire gamut of issues, but the government has so far not reacted.
