By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, March 9: Slamming the MDA 2.0 government for allegedly failing to perform, the Voice of the People Party (VPP) on Saturday said the last one year of the government has been one that was marked by “misdoings” and “anomalies”.
Stating that the National People’s Party, which heads the coalition government, has every reason to celebrate as it becomes richer through contributions from crony capitalists, VPP spokesperson Batskhem Myrboh criticised the government for frequently taking loans.
“It (MDA government) resorts to taking more loans. Taking more loans by the corruption-ridden government implies greater opportunity for corruption which benefits themselves and their coteries while the burden of loans is shifted to the ordinary citizens,” Myrboh said.
He claimed that the last one year was marked by lawlessness, government’s commitment to punish the honest people and non-submission of utilisation certificates amounting to thousands of crores of rupees. He alleged people were deprived of development. “Even government contract works were monopolised by people who have close links with the ruling dispensation. These contractors compromised with the quality of work, leading to a huge loss of public money,” he alleged. “The year is also marked by the indecisiveness of the government on many fronts. For example, it failed to decide on building a full-fledged airport. The year is marked by the rise in prices of essential commodities which affected the poor people,” Myrboh said.
Further, he said under this government, Meghalaya has become infamous for the high rates of poverty, school dropouts, and crisis-ridden healthcare system. He said the condition of roads has deteriorated while there will be power outages for more than half of the day. “The year is marked by more advertisements and not good work. Even the issuance of appointment orders had to be advertised. Only bad products require maximum advertisement,” Myrboh said.
He said the one year of the MDA 2.0 government is also marked by the alleged looting of the state’s revenue by the political appointees, appointed by Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma. Such political appointees are mostly the politicians who have been rejected by the people, he said.
“The one year is also marked by the lack of accountability to the people. The number of days for Assembly sessions was highly truncated,” he said, adding that the government’s lack of responsibility and accountability was evident during the standoff between college teachers and NEHU.