Panchayat Minister Mauvin Godinho appears to be making poor excuses on the Bhutani mega project controversy. (A) How can he say he is not involved in any way in the Bhutani project approvals when the Sancoale Panchayat, under his Panchayat ministry, gave approvals to the developer without having the necessary permissions in place?
(B) The Minister says the law will be followed and they are seeking legal opinion. To which I ask, why was legal opinion not sought by the Sancoale Panchayat in the first place, before giving Panchayat approval to Bhutani? Why was the law not followed then, and instead, the go-ahead was given in haste to the developer? Should the Panchayat Minister not have given assurances to Goans about investigating the irregularities by the panchayat in not following due process in granting permissions to the developer? By not doing so, does it not imply that he is also complicit in the matter? Does all the latter instil any confidence among Goans that the Goa Government, and particularly the Panchayat Minister, can be trusted?
(C) Why was the Minister silent for such a long time when protests against Bhutani began and only started to comment now, after activists put a lot of pressure? As a prominent minister, who is geographically closest to Sancoale Village, could he not have taken up the case on priority with the Goa Government for the villagers? Does the fact that he has not acted make Goans very suspicious of his links with Bhutani?
