In a follow-up to their memorandum to Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma yesterday, which demanded a full and transparent accounting of the Rs 399 crore spent on Covid-19 pandemic measures, civil society group Thma U Rangli-Juki (TUR) filed three Right to Information (RTI) requests today.
Two RTI requests have been directed to the Chief Minister’s Secretariat and one to the Labour Department.
These RTI applications are in addition to TUR’s demand seeking proactive disclosure of all the accounts, including the names of suppliers and vendors under the Social Audit Act and Section 4 of the RTI Act, it said in a press release today. TUR is also going to file further RTI applications seeking details of expenditure by MLAs out of the funds received for Covid-19 relief.
The group also appealed to Meghalayans to proactively seek information under the RTI Act so as to ensure that the Covid-19 pandemic does not become a “pandemic of corruption”.
If RTIs reveal corruption or abuse or power, TUR urges citizens to complain to the Meghalaya Lokayukta.
In the first application TUR called for a detailed breakdown of all expenditure carried out between February 1 and October 10 in the Health, Community and Rural Development, Information and Public Relations, Tourism, Agriculture, Border Area Development and Education Departments, along with the Chief Minister’s Secretariat and Chief Minister’s Relief Fund, with detailed breakdowns, including head of expenditure, nature of expenditure, date of expenditure, description of procurement, names and addresses of all the suppliers and vendors, dates and details of tender, work order and utilization certificates.
The second application requested details of procurement of ambulances, oxygen cylinders, testing kits, food, blood pressure monitors, ventilators, bio-medical waste vans, personal protective equipment (PPE), thermal scanners and quarantine kits between February 1 and October 10. The information should include copies of all work orders issued for supply and procurement of goods and services mentioned above, copies of all tenders issued for each work order, copies of all utilization certificates and the names and addresses of all vendors and suppliers, what they supplied, amount paid or due to them and contracts between them and the government.
The application to the Labour Department sought for a list of all beneficiaries who received cash support in the period between March 1 and October 10, with their names, addresses, amount received, date of funds transfer and scheme under which they received support.
