The tsunami 'SEZ'

The minister most concerned about getting jobs for Goans by creating SEZs and his pal, a commissioner with a globetrotting devotion to WHERE Goans have migrated, besides a professed love for getting jobs for non-resident Goans; have another thing in common apart from their shared love for creating imaginary jobs -they don’t read the newspapers. So, I suggest to them, try Google instead, it’s easier, quicker and your broadband comes free. I discovered that in whatever nonjudgmental way you Google, you still get a tsunami of opposition to SEZs on your screen. I even tried ‘is SEZ opposed in India’ and got the same answers. It appears none want it, except the minister.

There’s only one thing you can’t read in the thousands of words written about SEZ opposition when you Google, and that is the fact that industry in Goa pays slave wages (Rs 103 per day) to its workers and that labour contractors purposefully rotate contract workers between different employers, so there is always a break in their service. (***Are the minister and his pal doing something about that?)


Calling their bluff

Remember the number of times Luizinho Faleiro said industries would be forced to employ Goans although we just can't seem to live on those miserly salaries, and the times Aleixo Sequeira said SEZs will provide jobs for Goans, or the times Vishwajit Rane and the Dhavlikar duo have also said that, also thbat Chandrakant Kavlekar is eternally confused between SEZ and food park? Well, it happened that the MLA Damodar Naik asked for the names, addresses and date of joining of all workers employed by the companies in the Cipla group in Goa in the Goa Assembly late in 2007. The amazing answer from Digambar Kamat was: "Details such as names etc are not maintained by government." Einstein could not have been cleverer.

Sons of which soil?

Yet, another question asked was to furnish the number of Goan workers Cipla employed. Cipla replied: "The total number of local recruits/Goan origin is 1728 (contract and regular employees.)" For the record, Cipla cleverly parceled off its group (you can guess why) into seven different companies employing 2396 workers. You can guess too that nothing has changed in Goa since then.

And for readers in the mood to Google, do check on a report I think was released in 2007 by the Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB), which sharply criticised the Indian government for offering unnecessary tax incentives to developers of SEZs. These incentives can open loopholes for tax evasion and undermine investments in firms located outside the SEZs, the report argued.

The ADB report added: "Some of the loudest political opposition to SEZ projects comes from the landless, who may not receive compensation for the land conversion and who lack the capital to become self-employed."

More bluff

In this same column titled ‘Living it up’ dated January 21, 2008, I wrote: ‘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 Rs 86,691 on trips to Kuwait and Qatar in November 2007. The Director, NRI Affairs UD Kamat spent Rs 66,930 on the same junket and Rs 58,807 in June 2007 to fly to Lisbon. The Chairman, Overseas Employment Agency of Goa VAdm John D'Silva spent Rs 66,930 on the Kuwait and Qatar junket. Evidently not satisfied with their efforts abroad they looked towards the homeland too. Faleiro spent Rs 3,64,535 to travel within India, while D'Silva spent Rs 78,566 and Kamat spent Rs 1,03,933.’
I have some more information (total cost this time) now on those junkets. Kamat spent Rs 1,43,037 on his seven day junket to Portugal via Frankfurt, He spent Rs 1,94,479 over nine days in Kuwait and Qatar, Rs 1,75,738 for nine days in Oman, UAE and Bahrain, Rs 1,97,090 over 11 days in Mozambique and Kenya and Rs 2,33,364 over ten days in Canada. Total: Rs 9,43,708. Faleiro spent Rs 4,52,272 for nine days in Kuwait and Qatar, Rs 5,22,905 for nine days in Oman, UAE and Bahrain, Rs 6,84,735 over 11 days in Mozambique and Kenya, and Rs 8,89,514 over ten days in Canada. Total: Rs 25,49,426. D’Silva spent Rs 1,36,267 over nine days in Oman, UAE and Bahrain and Rs 1,70,775 over nine days in Kuwait and Qatar. Total: Rs 3,070,42. Grand total: Rs 38,00,176. And so after yet another extravaganza the two-day ‘Fourth Global Goan Convention’ held on November 5-7 at Muscat and yet another strident call for ‘self-employment for NRGs”, do you see any job opportunities on the horizon? And for crying out loud, will one of you this time do the leg work and seek the expenditure of this one under Right to Information and pass it on to me. Honestly, I am tiring of doing this on my ownsome lonesome. Call 2280935/9822152164.


(Feedback 2280935, 9822152164 lionroars.goa@gmail.com)