TURA, April 6: As the opposition Congress led by its leader Mukul Sangma goes hammer and tongs at their rival NPP for the ills plaguing the GHADC, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma has hit back questioning criticism levelled by his bête noire to the ‘reforms’ initiated by his party.
“The Congress and Mukul Sangma blamed us by saying we could not lift the GHADC and pay salaries of the employees. But the Opposition fails to realise that it was only our NPP-led Executive Committee in GHADC that began the much-needed reforms which will bring it back to a position of strength,” said Conrad Sangma as he held election rallies across North and East Garo Hills on Tuesday.
Top leadership of the NPP, led by Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong and Rajya Sabha member WR Kharlukhi, have joined the campaign trail addressing public rallies and giving their party’s side of the views.
“Mukul Sangma and Congress party accuses us of failing to turn the GHADC around. But they do not understand nor realise the kind of work we have initiated to reform the Council. In 2010, the strength of the GHADC staff was only 1,100 staff, but suddenly in 2013 it rose to 2,300 due to illegal appointments during the Congress EC in power in GHADC. A salary bill that was earlier just Rs 2 crore suddenly rose to Rs 6 crore each month. All those months and years the backlog began to rise with no remedy in sight,” pointed out Conrad Sangma as he gave his side of the story to the Congress accusations.
He said that the decision taken to pay salaries directly to the bank accounts of the staff and deposit of revenue collected with the banks as part of the reforms led to a major revelation in the ‘misappropriation’.
“It was during the reforms being initiated that we sought the identity cards of each employee working in the district council as the banks required the data. We unearthed 700 ghost employees with no records whatsoever under whose names money was being drawn each month during salary disbursement. We have shut them down,” said the chief minister.
He attacked the Congress for attempting to roadblock the reforms initiated by his party and government.
“Those whose interests are threatened will always oppose reforms. But change is inevitable. For progress, we have to embrace change which is why we are continuing the reform process in GHADC and believe the people of Garo Hills will return us to power to continue and complete this process for the long lasting benefit of GHADC and Garo Hills,” says Conrad Sangma.