PANAJI
The Corporation of City of Panaji (CCP) Mayor Rohit Monserrate and Commissioner Clan Medeira have come under fire over the seeming irregularity related to the continuance of the pay-parking fee collection contract in the city with the incumbent contractor Sohan Juwarkar.
And not without reason.
The contract with Juwarkar had ended in mid-February this year and the Corporation had taken no steps to start the process of floating a fresh tender to award a fresh contract in advance.
Worse, post-facto extension of six months was granted to the contractor and the Corporation failed to conduct a fresh tender process in the duration of these extended six months and the contractor merrily continued collecting parking fees in the city for several weeks after the extended contract expired in mid-August.
Earlier this week, Monserrate and Medeira came under fire from Opposition councillors Surendra Furtado, Uday Madkaikar, Joel Andrade among others who alleged a scam in the whole dealing.
Both Monserrate and Madeira defended the decision to issue a fresh contract to the incumbent, claiming that he had won the bidding in the new tender process completed in July-August and the contractor had even paid the CCP the guarantee amounts of about Rs 1.5 crore.
Madeira meanwhile claimed that the pay parking fees collected by the contractor in the weeks that there was technically no valid contract for it is covered by the terms of the new contract and the money is all accounted for.
The Commissioner however did not explain the details of the methodology used to account for the contractless period but only said, that the CCP's component of the revenue has been deposited by the contractor.
The CCP has been netting approximately Rs 20 lakh revenue every month in pay parking fees through the contract and Monserrate has claimed that these amounts are much higher than previous records.
Furtado, a former multiple term mayor himself, however claims that the entire episode smacks of a scam and exposes a bias to favour the contractor.
The former mayor had first red-flagged the issue of the contractor continuing to collect pay parking fees in the city even after his contract had expired on August 24 and had demanded that the Commissioner file a police complaint against the contractor.
