OLD GOA
The Corlim gram sabha saw heated discussions over the fiasco surrounding corruption in the garbage collection issue on Sunday, which consumed nearly the entire meeting. Initially, there was a debate between the former garbage collector Sunil Mewada and the ruling panel over the pending payment to the former.
The panchayat authorities informed that there is no contract signed over the garbage collection while stating that the panchayat was only paying the daily wage labourers involved in garbage collection. The authorities further pointed out that bearer cheques were issued to the labourers during the tenure of the previous sarpanch, with only one person receiving the cheques.
“In one instance, a labourer informed me that she never received the cheques,” sarpanch Freeda Po informed, while adding that the panchayat will inquire into the matter and then file a complaint with the authorities concerned.
On his behalf, Mewada alleged that his payment is held up as he is not willing to pay commission. Former sarpanch Baptist Pereira agreed that bearer cheques were issued for payment of daily wage labourers. “But the payment was done to the labourers themselves,” Pereira clarified, while claiming that there was no corruption involved as is being alleged.
On the contrary, Pereira pointed to the payment to four labourers which were accepted by one of the panchas. “Cumbarjua MLA raised the issue in the Assembly only after being convinced that there is corruption in the matter,” Pereira added.
Meanwhile, the villagers questioned how the panchayat was spending lakhs of rupees on garbage collection without issuing a tender. “When the garbage collection is done through daily wage labourers, there is bound to be scope for corruption,” one of the villagers pointed out, while demanding that the process for floating a tender for garbage collection should be immediately started by the panchayat.
To that, sarpanch Po informed that first, the panchayat needs to get approval for a site for setting up an MRF. “We have identified a site and the same needs approval from GSPCB,” the sarpanch said.
