The Grape Escape - Final

Wine, Women and Song

In part II you read how GTDC crossed all auditing standards in accepting a bill of Rs 3,66,750 crafted by Crosscraft Pvt Ltd, Rs 3,25,000 of which was billed without explanation and as a consolidated figure for services rendered by it. This and other astonishing facts I mentioned proved GTDC showed utter contempt for both the tax payer and audit rules because with the exception of two suppliers, the rest submitted bills on letter heads or were casually handwritten and without VAT deductions.

The Entertainment Society of Goa which a couple of years ago had to reach deep down into its bag of tricks, coming out with this magical phrase 'adaptive reuse' finally got adept at adaptive reuse. It hired out what is loosely called the Inox courtyard, which many erroneously think Inox owns, for a fee of Rs1,13,438.

For many the annual Grape Escapade is a social outings that is a must on the social calendar and quaffing wine they consider the elixir of life the ultimate experience. They, of course, would call this probe a case of sour grapes (pun intended). The bittersweet truth however is as follows:

-GTDC raised a bill on the Tourism Department charging it Rs 1,00,000 for travelling and transportation; Rs 1,00,000 for staff involvement; and Rs 1,96,544 as administrative charges. Goodness knows, what the difference is between staff involvement and administrative charges, but if you have any unused imagination left, you figure it out. As for me, it's a case of, as the Bard put it so well, a rose by any other name…. By the way, these expenses tote up to Rs3,96,544 which is the single largest expenditure after Crosscraft's Rs3,66,750, the Rs 2,29,474 spent on advertising i.e., Rs 1,83,648 advertising in the local papers plus the Rs 45,826 Midday ad (all advertising done through Sean AdEvent) or the Rs 1,69,000 spent to hire entertainers.

-Next, recall the two pre-receipted bills GTDC submitted to the Tourism Department which bankrolled the extravaganza; one for Rs 15,00,000 and the second for Rs 11,03,456. The difference if you subtract the latter figure from the former is Rs 3,96,544. In other words the GTDC never intended to refund this Rs 3,96,544 for which it had no supporting bills because it just did not spend that money. As the saying goes, when the going gets tough, the GTDC gets going. In fact, there is no mention of this Rs3,96,544 expense in the statement of bills GTDC submitted to the Tourism Department which has a total of 27 items. It did however, as I said, submit this expenditure also as a pre-receipted bill dated 8 March 2007 to the Tourism Department which is how I got it. That leaves you with one last disturbing question to ask. Does the government really do any serious auditing of your tax money?

-A total of Rs 169,000 was paid to 13 entertainers including Rs 40,000 to a group of Russian dancers who turned out to be the highest paid. But, before you get all hot under the collar, remember there is no evidence to show exactly how much was actually paid to them because I believe the GTDC itself cannot. You see, it did not actually pay them directly. It did however submit a barely legible handwritten statement of payments made to all the entertainers including two payments of Rs 25,000 and Rs 15,000 made to a certain John Pinheiro on behalf of the Russian dancers. By the way, 13 entertainers were hired to entertain over the three nights! None of them submitted any bills, they each (the remaining 12 that is) simply signed a GTDC voucher and as they sang, danced or pranced all the way to the bank. Beats laughing all the way to the bank, if that's any comfort to you.

That's why I called this series The Grape Escape!

(Next week: IAS officers on a joy ride

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The Grape Escape - II

VAT an Idea!

You read last week how the Goa Tourism Development Corporation (GTDC) which has always looked like a corporation for self-advancement of its self and the tourism ministry; placed an ad on the Mid-Day, a paper that is called an eveninger, hardly the medium you would want to advertise a local event. How Rs 23,296 was spent to buy flexible hoardings and another Rs 10,088 to buy printed flex on frame. How Rs 35,000 was spent on 'Grape Escapade advertising and publicity campaign' and Rs 3,000 billed for 'Grape Escapade additional hoarding charge.' It would of course never occur to GTDC that all this is totally unnecessary because at the most it was only the people of Panjim who went to the event more out of curiosity, then expectation. How could they, when they have to be flexible with your tax money? And you learnt also that GTDC prefers the printing done in Kolaphur to the extent it printed its invitation cards there.

It gets better this week because I learnt that Crosscraft Pvt. Ltd charged Rs 3,66,750 for the stage, light effects, tables, chairs, intelligent lights, stalls and generator backup. Though Crosscraft's bill claims it supplied 100 tables, GTDC submitted the Tourism Department a second bill from Indira Decorators & Sound System for providing 30 tables at a cost of Rs 5100. This is far cheaper, if you compare it with Crosscraft had it of course provided a breakup of its services which was not the case. But it wasn't prepared too naturally.

In fact, in Crosscraft's bill made out for a consolidated Rs 3,66,750, the only itemized costs are Rs 38,000 for the 125 KVA generator and Rs 3750 for balloons it supplied (Iam truly blown away by this exhorbitant cost.) The breakup of the balance Rs 3,25,000, I guess was left to the imagination of the government auditors. Astonishingly, in none of the many bills I have in hand has VAT been added, except in the bills submitted by Midway Trading Co and the printer. Look at it this way, they waste your tax money trusting you not to object. You haven't so far, so why bother now, when they don't pay taxes. Several bills in fact were merely handwritten on letterheads revealing the barest of details.

It gets better. Henry's Music Café billed GTDC Rs10,500 for providing a projector and screen. That's what its bill no 570 proves abundantly. In the statement of bills GTDC submitted to the Tourism Department, item no. 23 of the statement is testimony to that too. However, item no. 24 declares that a generator was also provided by Henry's Music Café. No cost is mentioned and no explanation, given either, why? Was GTDC using rare hindsight trying to cover up any future queries? Question is, since Crosscraft provided a generator was there a need for a second one?

Here's some more sound logic for the government internal auditors and the Comptroller Auditor General of India. Henry's Music Café also billed (bill no. 568) GTDC Rs 60,000 for providing a sound system (Rs 45,000) and a generator Rs15,000.) But in its statement of bills against item no. 4 GTDC billed the Tourism Department a consolidated sum of Rs 60,000 and Rs 12,000 (item no. 5) for hiring an additional sound system. But there is no mention of this in the relevant bill of Henry's Music Café (bill no. 568.) Eventually, both Henry's Music café bills and the GTDC's statement of bills add up to Rs 82,500, but the point I am trying to make here is these basic errors in the statement of bills proves there is little to talk about the accounting methods of GTDC. Leave out the criminal wastage of it. Or, is it that we are as deaf as we are seemingly dumb. Moot (or should I say mute) point eh?

And finally, at the Malar Bonderam in Divar, Churchill Alemao extolled people to fight for Konkani in the Romi script. Do you think he forgot where he was because we all thought the Bonderam is about festivity.

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The Grape Escape - I

If you wondered how easy it was for all our montris to jet across the planet in the series called 'Those Magnificent Men (one Woman) in Their Magnificent Flying Machines' concluded in August, this one for its sheer audacity should make your hackles rise. Well, kind of at least, because I know nothing shocks you any longer. This investigation called the 'Grape Escape' probes the GTDC organized Grape Escapade. Strange are the ways of government, that for the event held between 13-15 February 2007 a pre-receipted bill for Rs 15,00,000 dated 8 March 2007 was issued by GTDC to the Tourism Department. A second pre-receipted bill with the same date was made out for Rs 11,03,456.

Earlier, on 20 December 2007 after learning that GTDC had virtually no bills to back this huge expenditure and which it had to produce to the Tourism Department that bankrolled the whole extravaganza, I asked the department for information under the RTI Act. It took the department several months to coax GTDC into submitting the bills and information I asked for, some of which was given to me much after 25 July 2008, the date that is recorded on some answers which were officially handed over to me. Why, were both the pre-receipts dated 3 March 2007? Weird as it appears, this is the way the government functions. I must add too that the Tourism Department is perhaps the only government agency with two officials designated as Public Information Officers, for the south and north separately. Work that one out for yourself, if you can.

But, the real scrutiny begins here. Because, for an event ostensibly held to popularize local wines (this is what the first event promised, but deviated from later) an advertisement was placed in Mumbai's Midday! Midday, mind you is an afternoon newspaper popularized by Mumbai's millions of mainly non-wine drinking working class train commuters, and yet the GTDC thought it was appropriate to advertise in it. Guess what too? Rs 45,000 was spent advertising in the Midday as early as 6 January 2007. Was GTDC giving those train commuters enough time to prepare for a short wine drinking sojourn to Goa? That's a thought. But for your information, none of them came. Grape Escape, exactly!

A company called Midway Trading Co billed GTDC Rs 23,296 to supply it printed flexible hoardings. It submitted a second bill for Rs 10,088, this time for printed flex on frame. I understand the need to advertise in the local print media to popularize the event, but I cannot think this one through. Rs 35,000 billed by Bina Nayak under this head 'Grape Escapade advertising and publicity campaign' and Rs 3,000 billed under this head 'Grape Escapade additional hoarding charge.'

Invitations (360 +envelopes) were printed at Kolhapur at a cost of Rs 5,049. Later, another set of invitations were printed at the same Rajhauns Printing Press for Rs 5,564 (800 this time.) Leave alone the fact that in recent years the Grape Escapade has turned out to be an escape for wineries from Maharashtra (protesting, one Goan winery even refused to participate in 2007) the GTDC apparently thinks that local printers can't do a basic printing job. And almost like it wanted to make a point of GTDC's infidelity to Goa's winners, Grover Vineyard billed it Rs 3000 for wine served to VIPs and some select journalists. Grover's which spends millions propagating the social minutiae and, the grace of wine drinking, could not find the grace to be equally enchanting and serve up its wine for free. Particularly if you consider that a bottle of wine is in the region of Rs 300 a bottle and its bill of Rs 3000 means it served about 10 bottles. Come on!

In fact, the only company that did not pluck the vineyard of its choicest grapes, so to speak, was Bluebird Security Services which charged only Rs 5400 for security services provided. Thank God for small mercies!

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