MARGAO
As the latest govt guidelines promises to ensure transparency and put an end to the quotation raj, Margao city fathers on Friday expressed their strong reservations to the official advice in execution of works.
As the Director of Municipal Administration’s guidelines seek to make ward councillors proposing works in their wards accountable and responsible for the work carried out, many a councillor expressed concern that the guidelines may hamper smooth execution of development works in the city.
When the councillors asked the Chief Officer for his take on the DMA guidelines, the Chief Officer Agnelo Fernandes said “as a government servant, I and the Municipal engineers are bound to go by the guidelines”.
At an informal meeting of the councilors it was decided to ask Chief Officer Agnelo Fernandes and Municipal Engineer Diniz D’Mello to give their observations on the guidelines. Based on the observations, Chairperson Lyndon Pereira will call for a special meeting of the Council to deliberate threadbare on the DMA’s guidelines and suggest changes.
A section of the councillors led by former Chairperson Ganashyam Shirodkar pointed out that while the city fathers may have concerns over the new set of guidelines, there should be no compromise on transparency, citing past instances how the quotation system was misused to suit the vested interests.
In fact, Ganashyam informed that he would request the Chief Officer to compile a record of works carried out via quotations in the last 10 years which sources say that funds to the tune of lakhs of rupees must have been spent on civic body works via quotations.
Councilor Sadanand Naik said the civic body should take care that the guidelines do not come as a hindrance to the execution of development works in the wards. He asked the Chief Officer to seek advice before going about the job in implementing the guidelines.
Councilor Dada Naik said small and urgent works may suffer if the new guidelines are implemented, even as he agreed that there ought to be transparency in the execution of works.
Chairperson Lyndon later told the media that the meeting has asked the Chief Officer and the Municipal engineers to prepare a report with their observations and place the same before the Special meeting of the Council. “After discussions on the issue, the Council may write to the DMA office the problems likely to arise in the implementation of the guidelines and offer suggestions to streamline the system”, Lyndon added.
As already reported, the DMA guidelines, coming after a probe by the Anti-Corruption Bureau, Vigilance instituted by Goa Lokayukta into the MMC tender scam, has sought to bring into force transparency in the execution of development works.
In fact, the DMA has asked the Chief Officers/CCP Commissioner to device a system/practice of maintaining ward wise files wherein all works carried out in each ward every year are maintained, to not only help maintain proper records and transparency, but to enable the ward/municipal engineers to assess the proposals as the officials keep changing with the new officials having no track of earlier works.
