Recently defence minister along with Chief Minister of Goa had hit on the two former ministers from Goa for getting involved into the Louis Berger case which was indirectly hinting on to the former PWD minister Churchill Alemao and Chief Minister Digamber Kamat respectively. When media tried to contact Kamat for his comments he was not available while Alemao tried to clarify that he was not the part of the technical committee and hence he played no role in the appointment of Louis Berger company A PWD minister does not appoint consultants () in any project. That is decided by technical committees,” he said.
Following the allegations made by defence minister, the former PWD minister of Goa Churchill Alemao staged an attack on Defence Minister and BJP government in Goa saying why the ruling party had signed the contract for the Mopa Airport with the same firm. “The consultancy firm was paid Rs 14 crore for the Mopa project. The government should tell people how much commission it received. If the government acknowledges that Louis Berger gives bribe to win projects, the same thing would have happened for Mopa as well. That project needs to be investigated too,” Alemao told the media. “If the honorable Defence Minister claims to know so much, why did he hire the same consultancy for the Mopa project?” he added.
Alemao told the media that he is not scared of facing any sort of inquiry as he has not done anything wrong “I am ready to face any inquiry, be it CBI or any other agency. I challenge the BJP government to prove these charges against Me,” he said. He further continued saying “I do not recognize any official from Louis Berger. They never met me. All the contracts were given as per rules. The entire process was handled by engineers of the technical department of PWD. I had no role to play. As per rules, once the technical department processes the tender, the file goes to the Chief Minister.” Alemao also made it clear that direction given by Laxmikant Parsekar to state police to probe the matter is not sufficient and intervention of the CBI is necessary to solve this matter.
When asked by media if he meant to point out that officials were involved into taking bribes from Louis Berger, Alemao denied, saying he is not aware “You should ask the BJP government. How will I know if engineers took bribes?” he said. But he did not miss the chance to target Parrikar saying that “The defence minister comes to Goa every Saturday and Sunday and misguides the people. The state had a debt of Rs 8,000 crore when the Congress demitted office and Parrikar took it to Rs 13,000 crore. He created propaganda that our government had caused a Rs 35,000 crore loss to the exchequer in the mining scam. Why was he not able to recover that amount when he was in power? The defence minister has a habit of making U-turns?”.
According to the available information from reliable sources, Alemao has had cases of smuggling filed against him and his family. He was also briefly arrested in 1994 on smuggling charges. In 1990 he became the first Catholic Chief Minister of Goa, albeit for only 18 days. Since then, he has been in and out of the Congress three times. He was PWD minister between 2007 to 2012 and was accused of corruption.
There is something fishy in the entire episode and the truth will not be revealed until the CBI files the report in this case. It is quite possible that CBI may not be able to find anything in this case and the case will be closed due to the lack of evidence which is not the new story in India. How many cases against the people in the high places have been resulted into conviction? How many ministers till date has been convicted for corruption in India? How efficiently CBI performs its duty without getting influenced by the politicians and Ministers in India? The culprits in Louis Berger case in US have been punished but what about the culprits in India, will they ever get punished? Please do not forget to leave your valuable comments and suggestions on this issue.
Source: Indian Express
