A COUPLE of months ago Nagaland home minister Imchen Imkong was detained at Kathmandu airport for bringing back stashes of Indian currency after holidaying in that Himalayan kingdom. That an Indian politician is ignorant of the basic protocol that a foreign country demands (not to bring in Rs 1,000 currency notes) tells us just how uninformed our elected leaders are and what an embarrassment they are to those put them where they are.
During the Fifa world cup final, almost the entire cabinet of the Neiphiu Rio government was in South Africa. No politician is foolish enough to spend his own pocket money on such foreign sojourns. Which means the money comes from the state exchequer. But because people don’t care too much about using the Right to Information Act to ferret out information, the malaise continues and politicians get bolder and more avaricious by the day.
But there are some states where politicians do not have the time nor the penchant for foreign travel. The Tripura government is very stringent about using public money to subsidise private whims. In Manipur, ministers and other politicians are so engaged with their own issues that they have no time to plan such intriguing holidays. We also do not hear of ministers from Assam venturing out to foreign locales — but chief minister Tarun Gogoi rather frequently visits the USA, mainly to woo investors.
In Meghalaya, ministers, legislators and bureaucrats love going abroad. Shortly after taking over as chief minister in April, Mukul Sangma and health minister Rowell Lyngdoh, accompanied by a huge entourage of bureaucrats, visited Amsterdam, Germany and other European countries. They were away for nearly 10 days. Hardly had Sangma touched base than his colleagues, headed by the Speaker of the state Assembly, took off on a long itinerary, ostensibly to attend the Commonwealth Speakers’ conferences that are held at different venues in different countries.
While the opposition Nationalist Congress Party in Meghalaya has been crying hoarse about there not being enough Assembly sessions to discuss important matters of state that have a bearing on the common man, speaker Charles Pyngrope is spending more time in the air than on the ground. So much for parliamentary democracy!
In 2006, a one-day study tour in London was converted into a 10-day jaunt to European countries by some Meghalaya legislators who produced “fake and inflated” bills for the trip that eventually cost the government Rs 1.67 crore, according to a Comptroller and Auditor General report. The incident dates back to a trip (8-20 October) when then Assembly Speaker Martin Danggo, with 15 legislators and three secretariat staff, headed for London on a day’s study tour of the House of Commons, according to a Cag report tabled in March 2010. Interestingly, the one-day affair later turned out to be 10-day trip to Holland, France and Italy. After returning, the legislators submitted inflated bills and fake documents to the assembly secretariat that cost the exchequer Rs 1.67 crore. Members of the delegation claimed Rs 11.06-12.10 lakh in support of expenses during the trip abroad, which was reimbursed by the secretariat. Apart from “inflated” air fare bills, the legislators pocketed money for places they did not even visit.
During their visit to Amsterdam, the members claimed to have visited Brussels, Belgium and billed Rs 45,000 each as taxi fare. But according to the tour operator, the delegation was in Amsterdam that day. For the Euro Star train journey to Paris from London, each delegation member claimed Rs 67,500 while the tour operator claimed just Rs 3,073. The tour operator further charged Rs 68,998 to cover the entire accommodation and local travel cost abroad. Members of the team claimed Rs 5.94 lakh for taxi fare alone.
The actual expenditure, according to the tour operator, was Rs 22.38 lakh, but the total claim made by the legislators and paid by the secretariat was Rs 1.90 crore. When confronted by the media, some of the legislators muttered that they simply signed the travel claims filled in by the Assembly staff! Fine argument that!
In 2008, just after the United Democratic Party-NCP coalition, the Meghalaya Progressive Alliance government had taken over the reins and six legislators and some officials took off for the USA. The purpose being to study high wall mining. Funnily enough, one of them – also mining and geology minister — printed a calendar for 2009 that he distributed to his constituents and well-wishers with photographs of the US visit. Unfortunately, the photos were all taken in a casino where the minister and his colleagues were holding glasses of liquor and smiling for the camera. In the background was a voluptuous woman standing next to a roulette machine. The lot of them looked like they were in high spirits. This calendar became a collectors’ item and the talking point in Meghalaya for many months thereafter.
Recently, Meghalaya tourism minister Ampareen Lyngdoh took off for Shanghai where the world tourism mart was happening with her entourage of officials. But she made a detour to Beijing and then to Singapore for a sightseeing trip, but all at the cost of the state exchequer. No questions asked!
When the Meghalaya chief minister was asked why he did not rein in his colleagues who were bitten by the travel bug, he shot back that they were on a learning trip. But after so many visits abroad, the state has seen no visible change in policy making. While in Germany in May this year, the chief minister’s aide sent a press release that Meghalaya would take the help of Germany in road-making technology. All this is, of course, to make the people of Meghalaya feel good and to justify the needless trip.
A time has come for the Union home ministry and the ministry of external affairs, which apparently ties up these trips, to put a cap on such unimportant visits that cut a hole in state’s meagre budget. Cutting needless expenditure is imperative in a state that does not generate enough revenue to even pay its employees. We also must remember that 66 per cent of Meghalaya’s population live below the poverty line.
Following the 91st Amendment Act, which directed the Central and state governments to downsize their ministries, political instability rocked the North-east where ministry size used to go up to 48-50 members. But chief ministers got around this act by appointing a dozen or more parliamentary secretaries with all ministerial perks, save that they did not have independent charge of any portfolio. Chief ministers would keep these secretaries happy by sending them on world tours at state expense. Meghalaya chief minister Mukul Sangma justifies these trips, calling them learning experiences. Recently three Parliamentary secretaries got an invitation from some nondescript power company in China asking them to visit its plant. The three sought New Delhi’s clearance and would have gladly taken off, save for the fact that one of them did not have his travel papers in order so the plan went kaput.
Recently, a pressure group filed a PIL in Gauhati High Court seeking action against the legislators who had submitted inflated travel bills. We can only hope for some salutary punishment against the high and mighty who have the propensity to cock a snook at all rules of propriety!
The writer is editor, The Shillong Times, and can be contacted at patricia17@rediffmail.com