AITC national spokesperson challenged Meghalaya Deputy CM on Shillong Smart City

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaAugust 22, 2022

All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) national spokesperson, Saket Gokhale on Monday exposed the Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong for his alleged misleading statements on the Shillong Smart City Ltd.

In his letter to Tynsong, Gokhale has categorically refuted the Deputy Chief Minister’s response.

Explaining the Companies Act, he wrote, “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 the 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.

Earlier, Prestone Tynsong claimed that the financials for 2019, 2020 and 2021 had been audited and vetted by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.

Refuting the claim, he wrote, “If you claim is that the audit for these 3 years as well as for 2022 happened only this year, that is a gross violation of the law.“

Expressing his concern about the misutilisation of public funds, he further enquired, “It is incredibly astonishing that you’d use this justification for explaining why Shillong Smart City Ltd did not file its financial reports for over 3 years despite already having awarded contracts worth crores and having received crores of funds from both the Union Govt of India and the State Govt of Meghalaya.”

The national spokesperson further asked the deputy chief minister to clarify as to why Shillong Smart City Ltd did not have an Annual General Meeting for 3 years – 2019, 2020 and 2021 adding and if it did, you really need to clarify and give proper justification as to why financials for these 3 years have not been filed by the company.

According to him, this issue is important and pertains to public money belonging to residents of Meghalaya as well as people of India.

“Therefore, I anticipate that you’ll be kind enough to explain this discrepancy in your response to me and set the record clear,” he said in the letter.