All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) leader Saket S. Gokhale has contested the claims made by Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong on the Shillong Smart City Ltd.
It may be mentioned that on August 18, Tynsong had responded through the press to Gokhale’s allegation about Shillong Smart City Ltd not having filed its financial reports with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs for the years 2019, 2020, and 2021.
Tynsong claimed that Shillong Smart City Ltd was waiting for its financials to be audited and for them to be vetted by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India before being filed.
He also claimed that the company’s financials for the years 2019, 2020, and 2021 had been audited as well as vetted by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG).
In a letter to Tynsong today, Gokhale reminded that under the Companies Act, 2013, a company is required to file its financial reports within 30 days from the conclusion of the annual general meeting.
“According to the requirements under law, the annual general meeting of Shillong Smart City Ltd for the years 2019, 2020, and 2021 should have been completed by the month of March or September in those years. In the annual general meeting, the company’s board is required to take the audited financial statements on record,” Gokhale said.
“Therefore, there is absolutely zero excuse for the company Shillong Smart City Ltd to not have filed its financials for the years 2019, 2020, and 2021. If you claim that the audit for these three years as well as for 2022 happened only this year, that is a gross violation of the law,” he added.
Gokhale also said that it is incredibly astonishing that Tynsong used this justification for explaining why Shillong Smart City Ltd did not file its financial reports for over three years despite already having awarded contracts worth crores of rupees and having received crores of funds from both the Centre and the Meghalaya government.
“You’re requested to kindly clarify as to why Shillong Smart City Ltd did not have an annual general meeting for three years i.e. 2019, 2020, and 2021. And if it did, you really need to clarify and give a proper justification as to why financials for these three years have not been filed by the company. This issue is important and pertains to public money belonging to residents of Meghalaya as well as people of India,” Gokhale said.
Recently, Gokhale revealed that funds amounting to Rs 1005 crore for the Shillong Smart City projects have not been accounted for and not a single financial report has been filed since 2019 regarding the amount spent.
He said that by not filing mandatory financial disclosures as required by law, there is no trace of how Rs 1005 crore of public money has been spent by Shillong Smart City Ltd and no details on how contracts have been awarded,”
According to Gokhale, Shillong Smart City Ltd which was incorporated on January 22, 2019 with the Registrar of Companies, Shillong has been granted over Rs 1005 crore of funds for various projects by both the Government of India as well as the Government of Meghalaya and several of these projects such as construction of a commercial complex at Polo, Shillong, redevelopment of Laitumkhrah Market, and other projects worth crores of rupees have already been awarded to contractors and the works are ongoing.
