Trinamool Congress (TMC) national spokesperson Saket Gokhale today wrote a follow-up letter to Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong highlighting “contradictory” claims the latter made in the media about what the TMC describes as financial irregularities in the Shillong Smart City project.
Earlier this month, the opposition TMC claimed that funds amounting to Rs 1,005 crore for the project have not been accounted for and not a single financial report has been filed since 2019 regarding the amount spent.
Tynsong then described these statements as incorrect and malicious, saying that only Rs 251 crore has been received by state-owned Shillong Smart City Ltd (SSCL) since it was incorporated in 2019, out of which Rs 55 crore was state government money, with Rs 196 crore coming from the Centre. He also said that SSCL has only just had its financial statements audited and confirmed by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG).
“Filing will be done next month because the rules say that before the filing of financial statements the board has to pass it, which means get the report of the CAG and statutory auditor,” Tynsong said, adding that the SSCL will soon hold its annual general meeting and thereafter will file its financial statements.
Gokhale today said he had sought answers from the CAG and hit back at the Meghalaya government on the basis of the CAG’s response.
Categorically refuting Tynsong’s claim, Gokhale wrote to the Deputy CM, “Financial statements have to be filed with the Registrar of Companies upon completion of an audit by the CAG and its adoption in the general body meeting. Shillong Smart City was NOT (emphasis in the original) restricted from filing its financial reports with the Registrar of Companies until the CAG audit is complete, as claimed by you. Shillong Smart City could have filed its provisional financials for 2019-20 and 2020-21 pending the audit of the CAG which has not been done.”
Far from only recently being audited and confirmed by the CAG, Gokhale said that the Meghalaya government had received the final audited report from the CAG three months prior, in May. The 2019-20 accounts were audited by the CAG in the first week of March 2021 and submitted to the government with CAG comments in October that year. Similarly, the 2020-21 accounts were audited in February this year and submitted to the government in May.
However, the financial reports for 2021-22 have yet to be submitted to the CAG, the TMC spokesperson said, calling the delay “beyond any logical explanation”.
“The utter lack of transparency surrounding the financials of Shillong Smart City Ltd, the failure of the company to meet regulatory filing rules and the contradictory statements issued by you (Tynsong) in the press raise serious questions of propriety and functioning of Shillong Smart City Ltd,” Gokhale said. “This is even more serious considering that projects worth crores have already been awarded by the company to contractors from funds from public money received from the Government of India as well as the Government of Meghalaya.”
