SHILLONG, Sep 2: Trinamool Congress (TMC) national spokesperson Saket Gokhale on Friday countered Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong’s response to allegations of financial irregularities in the Shillong Smart City Project backed with the response of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.
Categorically refuting Tynsong’s claim that the book of accounts of Shillong Smart City had recently audited and confirmed by CAG, Gokhale said financial statements for Shillong Smart City for the year 2020-21 were audited by the CAG between February 10, 2022 and February 18, 2022 and were submitted to the Meghalaya government with CAG comments on May 11, 2022.
“Your claim on August 19 that the book of accounts of Shillong Smart City has just been audited and confirmed by CAG is not true since the Meghalaya government received the final audited report from CAG a full three months before your statement,” Gokhale said.
Disclosing scope for further irregularities, the TMC leader said, “As revealed by the CAG in its response, Shillong Smart City Limited (SSCL) has not submitted its financials for the year 2021-22 to the CAG for auditing yet. The delay in submitting the financials to CAG was explicable and beyond any logical explanation.”
The financial statement has to be filed with the Registrar of Companies upon completion of audit by the CAG and its adoption in the general body meeting. “Shillong Smart City Limite was not restricted from filing its financial reports with the Registrar of Companies until the CAG audit is complete as claimed by you. SSCL could have filed its provisional financials for 2019-20 and 2020-21 pending the audit of the CAG which has not been done,” he pointed out.
Expressing concern over misutilisation of public funds, the TMC leader said, “The utter lack of transparency surrounding the financials of SSCL, the failure of the company to meet regulatory filing rules, and the contradictory statements issued by you in the press raise serious questions of propriety and functioning of SSCL.
“This is even more serious considering that projects worth crores have already been awarded by the company to contractors from funds from public money received from the central as well as the state government,” the TMC spokesperson added.
It may be added here that, Gokhale had alleged that Shillong Smart City Ltd – a special purpose vehicle incorporated by the Meghalaya government – has not filed a single financial result or annual report with the Union Ministry of Corporate Affairs as is required under law even though it has been granted over Rs 1,005 crore of funds for various schemes under the ambitious project.
Reacting to the allegations, Tynsong had said that till date an amount of Rs 251 crore has been sanctioned which includes Rs 55 crore from the state share and Rs 196 crore from the Centre.
On the allegation of non submission of financial statements, Tynsong had said as per procedure the financial statement has to be filed with the Registrar of Companies upon completion of audit by the CAG and its adoption in the general body meeting.
“This book of account has just been audited and has been just confirmed by the CAG,” Tynsong had said while informing that filing will take place next month since as per the rules, before filing the statement the Board has to get the report of the CAG and the statutory auditor.
