MARGAO
At long last, the Margao Municipal Council’s Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) has on Friday filled the post of Municipal Head Clerk by promoting Scheduled Tribe candidate Antonio Barretto for the post.
The post was filled up after the three-member panel comprising Margao Municipal Chairperson Damu Shirodkar, Chief Officer Manuel Barretto and an Additional Director of Municipal Administration sat on Friday evening to take a call on the vacant post.
The post of Head Clerk has been lying vacant for the last year and a half since then Head Clerk Priya Naik retired on May 31, 2021.
The Margao Municipal virtually slept over the vacant post for over a year before calling for a departmental promotion committee earlier this year. Interestingly, the DPC meeting was postponed at the eleventh hour for reasons best known to then Municipal Chairperson Lyndon Pereira. What’s further interesting to note was that though the postponed DPC was held the next day, the panel filled up the two posts of market inspectors and preferred to keep the Head Clerk post vacant.
It was earlier this week that the DPC meeting was called by the Director of Municipal Administration to fill up the vacant post, but the meeting was postponed on the plea that documentation concerning the confidential reports of the eligible candidates was not attached.
It was only after eyebrows were raised in certain quarters and questions raised by Margao Municipal councillor Camilo Barretto, hailing from the ST community, that a deliberate attempt is being made to deny the post to the ST candidate, the meeting was called again on Friday, wherein the name of Antonio Barretto was finally cleared.
