Living it up - January 21, 2008

Fasten your seat belts
Goa's flying circus will never let you down because they don't suffer from jet lag. They just keep flying. The Commissioner for NRI affairs Eduardo Faleiro spent Rs86,691 on trips to Kuwait and Qatar in November 2007. The Director, NRI Affairs UD Kamat spent Rs66,930 on the same junket and Rs58,807 in June 2007 to fly to Lisbon. The Chief Secretary JP Singh who tirelessly globe trots on behalf of Goa spent Rs2,47,719. The Chairman, Overseas Employment Agency of Goa Vice Adm John D'Silva spent Rs66,930 on the Kuwait, Doha and Qatar junket.
Evidently not satisfied with their efforts abroad they looked towards the homeland too Faleiro spending Rs3,64,535 to travel within India, while D'Silva spent Rs78,566 and Kamat spent Rs1,03,933.

Low cost support
Eliciting this information under RTI cost me only Rs20 officially apart from petrol money but it gave me an insight into the life of the under privileged under-secretaries and clerical staff. There is no working copier in the two floors where several under-secretaries sit.
The copier of the Development Commissioner was taken away during the PM's visit and damaged. Even a joint secretary in the finance department whom I asked to help was embarrassed to say he did not have a copier. The door of the under secretary, home department Maria Pires designated as the public information officer under the RTI Act because strangely no PIO was appointed in the office of the Commissioner for NRI Affairs, does not shut and needs repairs. It took all of one hour to get ten pages copied eventually. Some weeks earlier when I went to the cabin of NV Prabhu Dessai, the under secretary, law we had to talk over the jarring noise of a ceiling fan.
Naturally, the story is different within the centrally air conditioned buildings where the Goa's new monarchs work. There is definitely a caste system practiced in the Secretariat.

High cost living
The NRI Commissioner's office spent Rs4,64,011 to fly in seven non-resident Goans who wouldn't care a fig if Goa disappeared from the face of the earth except to moan over the loss of their ancestral homes and properties which they abandoned for greener pastures, to attend the Global Goans Convention, 2007. Rs1,39,380 was spent to fly in Wolfango Dourado and his wife from Zanzibar in Tanzania. Dourado had a sterling legal career there. In their time, all these worthies may have been brilliant, but what is the point of inviting them now?
Likewise for Dr. Damodar Sardessai of California who cost the taxpayer Rs87,615, who as a successful educationalist ought to have offered to pay his fare. The same would apply to Dr. Narana Sinao Coissoro of Lisbon (expenditure incurred Rs76,480) Neville Roach, Sydney
(Rs67,656) Fitz Remedias Santana De Souza, Nairobi (Rs45,920) Leslie De Melo, Vienna, (Rs56,480) and Patricia Rozario, OBE, Kent, UK (Rs60,480.) What was the point really? Fritz De Souza, a Goan luminary in all of Africa retired in the 70s! Coissoro left Goa for Portugal in
1949.
So, should the government have its own airline? I vote yes because then Mopa airport will have a better claim for coming up. Besides the airline would come in handy every time there is a coup (and we know that's frequent in Goa) and our MLAs have to escape to Delhi or some resort in Rajasthan.

Reach for the sky
The air fare reimbursed to the seven recipients of Global Goans Achievement Awards was Rs5,34,011. Compare that with the miserly Rs1.50 lakh cash the government gave to Mando Festival winners this year, up from Rs 1 lakh. Here is more hair-raising information about the convention. Rs 5,13,000 spent on hotel accommodation for the recipients, heads of diplomatic missions in India and officers of the Ministry of External Affairs. Rs7,04,275 spent on lunches and dinners hosted by the Commissioner for NRI Affairs. Rs1,47,892 spent on transport. Rs5,44,907 spent on cultural entertainment. Rs1,12,410 spent on trophies for the award dinners. Rs6,67,480 spent on souvenirs. Rs1,36,300 spent to exhibit Goan art and paintings,
Rs31,893 on printing and stationery and Rs3,62,502 on advertising and publicity. Did they miss out on something? Noticeably, it was achieving nothing after spending Rs37,54,670. Apart from that the expenditure was on cue. Everyone got a free ride, dined, wined and departed with an expensive souvenir or trophy. What else did you expect?

Extravagant Society of Goa (ESG)
The Entertainment Society of Goa once again lived up to its name. Sealed quotations were invited ingeniously from 5-star hotels close to Kala Academy though the ESG didn't cut down on transportation costs to make its bluff look real. Naturally only two hotels tendered, Cidade de Goa and Goa Marriott Resort. And guess which got the contract? Cidade further away. The hotel had 825 room nights booked against 164 for the Marriott. The hotel quoted Rs10,120, Rs10,670 and Rs 14,300 for three class of rooms. The Mariott quoted Rs10,750, but did the lowest bid win?

Protecting monarchs
A CISF company consisting of 111 men protect Raj Bhavan including 24 personnel of the Goa Police lead by a PSI. Thirty-seven police including a PSI and ASI each protect Dagamber Kamat, 33 police protect Pratap Singh Rane including a PSI, 12 police protect Ravi Naik, 24 police including two ASI's protect Vishwajit Rane who in the short time he become an MLA was elevated to the status of 'Y' category. That means 57 police alone protect the Ranes. Wasn't it Vishwajit who said on Thursday that he resigned because the government did not deliver?
As taxpayers you even bankroll Luizinho Faleiro's police posse because Rs1.52 lakh was incurred till December 2007. During this period Rs1.52 lakh was spent protecting Advocate General Subodh Kantak whom if you have been reading this column should know gets paid only in crores.
Now you know why you can never get to your montris? It's because of the thick layers of khaki that hide them.

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