MARGAO
Will the powers that be explain how many times the SGPDA had tendered the wholesale fish market sopo collection fee contract since the market was shifted to the existing market around a decade and half ago?
If PDA officials are to be believed, the sopo collection contract might have been tendered once when the Congress government was in power, after which the PDA had only extended the contract from time to time for around a decade.
The first time the PDA replaced the contractor was in 2019 when there was a change in guard at the PDA after the Congress-turned-BJP MLA Wilfred D’Sa took over the reins of the PDA from the Goa Forward-controlled panel.
The new contractor has been collecting the sopo fees in the wholesale fish market since 2019, with the SGPDA only postponing the tendering of the sopo contract under one pretext or other, in the process causing loss of revenue to the Planning body.
The SGPDA Chairperson, however, said the two MLAs of Margao and Fatorda had been criticising the SGDPA over the sopo collection contract, without realising that it was during his tenure that the sopo fees have been hiked to bring in additional revenue to the Planning body via the sopo collection contract. “The two MLAs should also explain why the sopo contract was not tendered every year when they have been ruling the city over the last one decade,” he added.
