SHILLONG, May 22: The state BJP has asked the state government to scrap the audit reports of the JHADC and KHADC and make way for a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation. The party unhappy with the delay in making the audit reports public and sniffed foul play.
Reminding Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma of his assertion that the audit reports would be made available within a few months, state BJP chief Ernest Mawrie said, “I will write to the government for scrapping the local audit and go for a CBI inquiry since the funds for the councils come from the Union Finance Ministry and the Tribal Affairs Ministry.”
He did not rule out the possibility of foul play since the state government handles the local audit. “The delay in presenting the reports is a cause for concern,” he said, adding the government should have put them in the public domain after giving a word.
Mawrie said if the Assam government could let the CBI probe the irregularities in the Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council, there is no reason why the Meghalaya government cannot.
“Only eight months are left for the Assembly elections. The government should make the audit reports of the three district councils public before the new government is formed after the polls,” he said.
The state BJP had earlier opened Pandora’s Box of alleged misuse of central funds under the special assistance grants by the JHADC and the GHADC. The misappropriation was unearthed through RTI findings and ranged from setting up ghost infrastructure to making a documentary movie worth Rs 5 crore.
Under pressure for a CBI probe, the state government had ordered an audit into two district councils but is yet to come clean on the status of the reports.
Jowai garbage woes
The state BJP also accused the state government of not being proactive in finding a concrete solution to the Jowai garbage problem despite the intervention of the High Court of Meghalaya.
“It is almost four months and I have not seen any action from the government, the town committee or the municipality,” Mawrie said.
Expressing concern over the health hazard the accumulated garbage poses, he said the district council should take the issue seriously.
The high court had on Friday said the judges sitting in courtrooms cannot identify sites to be used for permanent or temporary dumping of garbage and it is high time the authorities got more proactive instead of training the gun from the court’s shoulders.