MARGAO
There’s fresh demand to recover the outstanding arrears from the Margao sopo contractor with the Director of Municipal Administration sending a communique to the Margao Municipal Council that sopo fees cannot be waived.
In fact, the Shadow Council for Margao said either the MMC should recover the dues from the sopo contractor or alternatively, the 16 councillors who supported the decision for waiver should deposit Rs 2 lakh each in the Municipal treasury, and subsequently justify the waiver.
SCM convener Savio Coutinho informed that he was in receipt of copy of a letter addressed to the Chief Officer of MMC, in connection with the complaint filed by the NGO.
He said the SCM had demanded that the Council resolution dated 24th March 2022 be scrapped in the interest of the public treasury, questioning how could the sopo contractor be granted such a huge waiver of Rs 32 lakh for the period of April 2021 to August 2021, when the lockdown was partial.
He said the sopo contractor is very liberally allowed to collect sopo fees since 1st April of the new financial year, even as the chairperson is yet to prepare the resolution/ minutes of the Council meeting dated March 24.
The SCM has warned that if the outstanding installments are not recovered within 15 days from Wednesday, they would file before the competent authority including the court of law.
