There should be a method in madness, ormaybe not. On December 20th, 2011 four days before Election Code ofConduct came into force , the Labour Department conducted interviews fromDecember 20 onwards for 160 posts ranging from lab-assistants, nurses, sweepersand cleaners for the newly set-up super specialty ESI hospital at Margao. Thenappointment letters were issued dated December 16th. Four daysbefore the interview. This was an attempt to woo all the selected staff livingin Joaquim Alemao’s home-turf Varca and his then two-time representedconstituency Cuncolim.
The present Labour minister AvertanoFurtado is now lobbying hard with Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar to scrapthese unauthorised appointments. “I have no jobs to give the locals. In the PWDand Electricity department, Mr Churchill Alemao and Mr Aleixio Sequeira issuedletters of appointment for posts that did not exist and these letters have beenissued illegally just before elections are back-dated before the Code ofConduct came into force,” stated Mr Furtado.
Mr Furtado is angry because Joaquimfilled up the posts at the ESI hospital which leaves him no scope to makeappointments from his own constituency of Navelim since the hospital near RajendraPrasad stadium is adjacent his constituency.
“Everyone knows that these appointmentsare illegal and Mr Parrikar is studying the legal aspect on how to cancel theseappointments and re-call candidates for interviews. Appointments in governmentshould be fair and conducted after being properly advertised in newspapers. Wewill cancel these Joaquim favoured appointments before July 15,” insists MrFurtado.
Enquiries reveal that Cuncolim MLA JoaquimAlemao had blatantly misused his departments of Fisheries, Urban Developmentand Labour in the previous Digambar Kamat government and appointed candidatesonly from Varca and Cuncolim at a kickback of Rs 3 lakh per job since ESIappointments are Central government posts. Quite a few of these appointmentscame under the scanner and public debate in cases where more than one familymember from the same family received government jobs.
