SHILLONG: Chief Minister Conrad Sangma has defended the government’s COVID expenses of Rs 399 crore and took a swipe at those who are smelling a rat.
Speaking to newsmen here on Monday, Sangma said that it is easy for people to sit down and analyse about the expenditure but the government ensured that people are taken care of during the pandemic.
“We gave good quality food and though testing cost us Rs 30 crore but we continued with free testing,” he said.
The chief minister also said that the government procured personal protective equipments at a time when there was huge shortage of the PPE and right now the state has enough PPEs to survive till March next year. “We have tried our best but this not a fight of the government alone,” he said while justifying the move saying that MDA is the only government which gave financial assistance to labourers.
When asked how the total expenditure jumped from Rs 200 crore to Rs 400 crore, he said that he had spoken only about the amount which has been cleared by the government and there were additional expenditures.
He also justified the expenditure by maintaining that a lot of investment has been made in different hospitals including CHCs and PHCs and now all the districts in the state have testing facilities.
However, the chief minister welcomed the move saying everything is transparent and anybody is welcome to file the RTI.