MARGAO
Margao Municipal Chairperson Lyndon Pereira was on a fire fighting mode on Wednesday over the Sonsodo imbroglio, trying to broker a truce between Civic officials involved in a blame game over the garbage situation and bring about accountability in handling solid waste management.
The Chairperson had an interaction with a host of officials from Chief Officer Agnelo Fernandes to Municipal Engineer Diniz D’Mello, Assistant Engineer Vishant Naik and automobile engineer Rohit after it came to light there the officials could not repair punctures in tyre of JCB machinery and other vehicles for want of money.
The blame game between the Municipal engineer and the Assistant engineer once again came to the fore, with the Assistant engineer Vishant maintaining that the JCB could not be deployed at the waste treatment plant for want of payments to the contractor.
As Vishant sought to point accusing fingers at the Municipal engineer for keeping the payment file on hold, the Municipal engineer told the Chairperson that his office had been prompt in clearing all the files relating to the plant.
The blame game amongst the Civic officials only brought to the fore absence of coordination amongst the top officials on an important matter such as Sonsodo. In fact, Assistant engineer Vishant had been maintaining for some time that the Sonsodo issue can be addressed not by a lone engineer, but only through coordination of all the engineers, including the Municipal engineer.
Giving a clear message that he means business, Chairperson Lyndon said that differences between the officials should not come in the way of resolving the burning Sosnodo issue, affecting the city as a whole. “I have told the Municipal engineers to leave aside their differences and work unitedly to address the burning issue. The officials should understand that Sonsodo affects the citizens of Margao as a whole and all efforts should be made to address the issue”, he said.
The Chairperson has said that he would personally monitor the Sonsodo matter on a daily basis to ensure that the city is not affected for want of logistics, including poclain and JCB in place.
The Chairperson also conducted a review of the decisions taken by the Council at its last meeting on solid waste management, especially in the issue of floating an Expression of Interest (EoI) to invite private contractors to take up the treatment of the daily waste at the Sonsodo waste treatment plant.
