Sawant’s admin gets free run as House panels go dysfunctional

PAC, PUC and EC failed to meet on regular basis

THE GOAN NETWORK | DECEMBER 01, 2023, 01:05 AM IST

PANAJI
First the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020-21 and thereafter, the brute majority of the ruling party post the 2022 assembly elections and defection of eight of the 11 Opposition Congress MLAs has afforded Chief Minister Pramod Sawant’s administration a relatively free run in terms of legislative accountability largely due to dysfunctional House Committees.

Crucial House Committees, particularly the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), the Public Undertakings Committee (PUC) and the Estimates Committee (EC) which scrutinise and assess the fiscal business of the government (executive) have hardly even met in the last 20 months since the current House was constituted in March last year.

Data obtained from the legislature department indicates that the PAC, which is headed by Quepem MLA Altone D’Costa, has met only once in September.

Apart from D’Costa who heads it, the PAC is comprised of Ganesh Gaonkar, Ulhas Tuenkar, Jennifer Monserrate and Kedar Naik (all from BJP) and Cruz Silva of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Viresh Borkar of the Revolutionary Goans Party (RGP) from the Opposition side the balance clearly lopsided in favour of the ruling dispensation.

The PAC is responsible to examine and hold accountable the fiscal functioning of the State administration and also virtually sets the agenda for the audit and observations of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG).

In the previous House (2017-22), this crucial committee had met seven times in 2017, nine times in 2018, six times in 2019 and thrice and once in the Covid-19 hit years of 2020 and 2021 respectively.

If the PAC has failed to meet regularly, the position of the PUC which is headed by Leader of the Opposition Yuri Alemao is no different.

This committee also scrutinises the fiscal position and functioning of State-owned corporations and autonomous bodies but has met only twice this year – in January and in September. It has a better record, however, of having met four times in 2022, holding two meetings each in June and September.

The Alemao-headed PUC also has on it Pravin Arlekar, Premendra Shet, Ulhas Tuenkar, Jit Arolkar, Cruz Silva and Viresh Borkar.

The PUC had met six times in 2017, eight times in 2018, thrice in 2019 and as many as eight and ten times in the Covid-19 hit years of 2020 and 2021 respectively during the previous term (2017-22) of the Assembly.

Another committee which is charged with reviewing the State government’s fiscal prudence and budgetary compliances – the Estimates Committee – also suffers from the same dysfunctional syndrome.

The Committee is headed by former chief minister Digambar Kamat and has met just twice this year in August and September. Apart from Kamat it comprises of four more MLAs from the ruling side – Ulhas Tuenkar, Michael Lobo, Premendra Shet and Jit Arolkar – and two from the Opposition in Venzy Viegas of AAP and Carlos Alvares-Ferreira of Congress.

Several other committees including the Special House Committee on the vexed Mhadei issue headed by WRD Minister Subhash Shirodkar have also met just once or twice.