Right to Information (RTI) activist Doria Shabong has demanded that an inquiry be constituted and pending work completed in Umlyngka, East Khasi Hills, where allegations of corruption in the implementation of the national rural employment guarantee scheme (MGNREGS) surfaced last year.
Shabong, in her letter to the Block Development Officer of Mylliem, urged that punishment be meted out to those responsible for the incomplete work over the past three years, whereby money was paid out from the scheme despite projects being unfinished.
“If most of the schemes had been unimplemented and the money withdrawn, then the responsibility for the corruption and malpractices rests on the workers of the Mylliem Block Development Office, whose concurrence is required to get the money released,” Shabong said.
Urging the BDO to institute an inquiry into the siphoning of funds, she said that an investigation into the Chairman of the Village Employment Council and staff of the BDO office should also be initiated.
“It is surprising that these work orders for 2017, 2018 and 2019, which are mostly incomplete, have been issued completion certificates knowing that the works are incomplete and at the same time there is no signboard (detailing the cost of the project and other specifics),” she said in her letter.
Shabong demanded that the half-finished work should be completed in two weeks or the money already withdrawn returned to the state, failing which she will file a complaint in court.
