SHILLONG, July 10: There has been a growing public outcry over the reports of scams in the ruling coalition with many of the pressure groups and leading lights of the town voicing their indignation. The reported loss of Rs 149 crore in Saubhagya scheme has become a flash point.
In sync with the pressure groups, like COMSO, HNY, KSU et al, who have recently reacted strongly to the financial misappropriation, retired bureaucrat, Toki Blah on Saturday in a hard hitting statement he said “There can be no smoke without fire and I fear something fishy in Saubhagya scheme,” he said adding bluntly that the politicians are out there to make money and not to govern.
“My concern is that these are the symptoms of larger and deeper malady of total collapse of governance in the state as we don’t have leaders but we have people who want to do business through power,” Blah added.
He also added that some leaders talk about corruption in other political parties but turn a blind eye when it happens in their own political parties while adding that Saubhagya is just another scam out of the many scams in the state. He was of the view that the audit report on Saubhagya may not be the final one, but it is immaterial to know whether it was leaked or not
“We the people have to come up with a strategy on how to elect competent and effective leaders or else we will continue to remain a failed state,” Blah added.
Former Home Minister, RG Lyngdoh too said that any inquiry should be thorough in nature as the
prime objective of any inquiry is to rectify whatever was wrongly done in the past. “If the mistakes are not identified, how does one know what needs to be corrected? Identification of transgressions and who committed them is the secondary objective. Rushing with an inquiry will also defeat it’s very objective. I feel if the inquiry is to achieve it’s objective, it should be from the time when things probably went wrong,” Lyngdoh said.
Stating that a look at the financial statements, primarily the annual profit and loss statements, will quickly indicate from which year the inquiry should be carried out, he added that then a realistic estimate of how long it would take to do a thorough study can be made, and the time-frame for the inquiry should be given accordingly.
“Any diversion from this norm, will defeat the purpose of the inquiry,” he added.
Sharing her views on the matter, CSWO president, Agnes Kharshiing said that the group knows is corruption from the birth of MeECL when it was not even audited when the MSEB was handed turned into MeECL.
She stated that the whole independent inquiry should be transparent and should not be hidden from the public.
Kharshiing was more frontal in demanding that the Government should first remove the Power Minister so that the inquiry would be fair and transparent, she said that Government should not be running after the audit authorities for leaking the report, as in a corrupt set up, whistleblowers are the only hope to bring out information before the public. She was of the view that corruption and nepotism was ruining the state.
