louis Berger row snowballs; three Cong-led deals 'under lens'

There’s fresh trouble for Congress bigwigs in Goa, with the BJP here demanding a CBI probe in three consultancy deals struck by the erstwhile Congress-led coalition Government, even as a senior BJP official said it would ask the Central Government to seek names of former Ministers and officials indicted in the louis Berger international bribery scandal. 

BJP’s vice-president, who addressed a Press conference on Thursday said that the Government should also probe the contract the Goa Government signed with it for the controversial Greenfield airport at Mopa, a village in Goa’s northern most corner as well as a consultancy it offered for sea bridge across a bay in Goa.  

louis Berger Group won a contract as a technical consultant for the Mopa greenfield airport. “We want the Central Bureau of Investigation to probe all the three projects which were given by the then Congress Government to louis Berger. The consultancy firm is involved in the JICA project, Dona Paula Sea-link project and the Mopa airport project,” Mesquita said.

Two top officials of louis Berger Group have already pleaded guilty to offering bribes of $3.9 million to secure contracts in Asian countries such as India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Kuwait.A contract for a water and sewerage project features in the list. Names of the officials and politicians in Goa who were bribed were however not revealed to the US Court. 

Mesquita however replied in the affirmative whether Goa will ask the cental government to ask the US Department of Justice to reveal names. “Of course we will seek names,” Mesquita said adding that “All the investigation will be of no use, unless we have the names.”A news report published in a national daily earlier this week, quoting a US Justice department spokesperson said that the names would be handed over to Indian authorities, if sought.

“All these deals need probing, because it has come to the fore now that louis Berger is a rogue company,” he added.Former Goa chief minister Digambar Kamat and former public works department minister Churchill Alemao during whose tenure the projects were awarded have found their names dragged in the scandal. 

Both Kamat and Alemao have denied the allegation.“All procedures were followed. Neither me nor my ministers did anything wrong,” Kamat has said. 

louis Berger was part of a consortium that eventually won a contract to execute a multi-billion dollar water and sewerage project in Goa funded by the Japan International Co-Operation Agency (JICA), which has paid Rs. 70 crore by the Congress-led coalition government in 2011-12.

Mesquita claims that the New Jersey-based company was also chosen as a technical consultant for the upcoming Mopa airport and for conducting a feasibility study of the Dona Paula-Mormugao sea link at the cost of Rs. 14 crore and Rs. 8 crore respectively.There have been demands that the Goa government review the Mopa airport project in view of the fact that the technical report could be doctored, in view of bribery allegations. “This government is also in a position to review whatever advice they give,” Mesquita said.The Crime Branch of the Goa Police has already started investigations into the bribery allegations, Inspector General of Police not ruling out the involvement of more than one minister in bribery case.