Rich Man, Poor Man

Cue on queue

Soon I will have to stand in a queue at my panchayat waiting to be issued a permit that proves I am a resident of Divar Island and therefore entitled to cross the ferry free. That is because my government dreamed up some eccentric freebie to help us islanders, instead of just giving us some decent ferries to cross over. It’s gotten so bad that a ferry will actually land on one side, its humans and vehicles disembark, and the ferry will hightail it to somewhere else on an SoS mission where yet another ferry has broken down. Musical ferries, it’s that bad. But, if it’s weird news you want: it’s in my DNA to give. The ferryboat Harmal is 22 years old, Penha-de France 19, Vagator 21, Colva 10, Diwar 10, Pomburpa 12 and Harvalem 18. In fact, some of them, because of the holes they have, remind me of the glass-bottomed boats I have seen in Mauritius and the Andamans and Nicobar Islands to view the flora and fauna. But between June 1, 2007 and June 30, 2009, our montris bought 22 cars at a cost of Rs 1,71,66,180 for themselves. Penny pinching is only for us aam aadmi as you can see. By the way, gamblers going to the floating casinos (never understood what ‘offshore’ means) will have to establish they are not Goans. I guess that means another kind of queue. This is getting tedious.


Thankfully tank full

Guess what, our ruling class is on clover, even if they’ll have you believe not financially and therefore are forced to continually upgrade their allowances or tuck at our cost; remember the assets they declared before the elections when we discovered their wives owned most of it? But here, I am talking about travelling from point A to point B. There are two jeeps (part of the escort) that drop the CM to his residence at Margao, from where ever he is, and return to Panjim. Next morning, they go all the way back to Margao etcetera, etcetera. And you think he is a petrol guzzler! Nah, that distinction goes to Tourism Minister Mickkey Pacheco parading his Hummer around Colva beach at nights, not to mention the temerity of parking it outside the hallowed Goa Assembly recently. When actor Suniel Shetty imported his many years ago, stats showed the Hummer’s fuel consumption could siphon off the Sal River inside a month. In other words, I am told it’s an ungenerous 3 km per litre. Poor man, Mickky could run dry one of these days. Not his purse, dope (considering he recently confessed that his winning in a casino was over a crore), the Hummer’s tank. By the way, General Motors which declared bankrupty recently is looking to hive off the expensive (1,00,000 dollars) car to another manufacturer because in the US, recession has driven people to small cars that economise on fuel. But here, it’s another story! India Shinning!


Oops!

Three weeks ago I wrote about how the Directorate of Health Services hired 280 guards, 6 security supervisors and 3 security officers to guard its 28 establishments, 22 of which are public health centres. I got an email saying that the RTI data was wrong. The email which contained not only the sender’s name but mobile no. too, said the actual figure was: security guards 525, women security guards 25, security supervisors 6, and security officers 3. The cost involved was a lot more than the Rs 198.10 lakh, the email revealed. The tender awarded to G4S was from August 1, 2008 and not from January 1, 2008, which now makes that a lesser period but for apparently a bigger expenditure. G4S is a multinational agency, a collaboration of Group 4 Falk of Britain and Securicore of America and not a Delhi-based agency, as I mentioned. And what I had said earlier was what was signed, sealed and delivered. Wonder who’s right?


One for the road

Quite literally. Of the 22 expensive cars our montris bought for themselves, 11 were Honda city cars each costing Rs 9,00,000, the kind of money it would take to repair a ramshackle of a ferryboat. Yeah, I know the government thinks it’s Rs 30,00,000 each. That’s another story. A Toyoti Innova costing Rs 9,05,680 allotted to the King of Kargoa (the to be merged State of Goa and Karwar) was in replacement of a car (GA-07-G-9700) which had run a measly 35,000 kms. A Toyota Corolla costing Rs 9,98,350 allotted to Jose Philip D’Souza was in replacement of a car (GA-07-G-0026) which had done just 28,000 kms. It’s another matter the two cars were re-allotted, my point is why does this government feel obliged to even offer an excuse or reason for spending your tax money. Just do it, as the ad says. No one’s looking. Besides, we expect nothing else from our extravagant montris!


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