Given the current sordid precarious times that our Goa is going through, we should as Goans be so outraged that Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has had the rank audacity to announce that IFFI 2020 will be staged in Goa. Yet another misplaced priority, yet another cheap gesture to distract the minds of people living in fear from the serious situation of a raging pandemic and a failing economy that CM Sawant has lost total control of.
The Goa Government seems to be losing its last marbles. The irony is that the Goa Assembly Session was restricted for an hour on account of this Pandemic and that the Speaker Rajesh Patnekar adjourned hearings against those defecting dozen MLAs on account of the same reason but now Pramod Sawant wants to hold IFFI 2020 in Goa while our poorest of the poor are financially in total doldrums.That the very thought of holding IFFI 2020 has dwelled in the minds of our accidental Chief Minister only goes to prove his intellectual and other mental incapacities. With the COVID-19 pandemic raging by the day, the Chief Minister needs to focus on new Covid hospitals across Goa so that the public get the required best medical care which is the statutory duty of the State. IFFI 2020 and the National Games should be shelved as innocent Goans are dying by the day on account of the rank administrative incompetence of the Chief Minister and his otherwise so potent Health Minister. In 2004 the then Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar did the people of Goa and Panaji in particular the biggest disservice by consenting to host IFFI in the State. Over the years it has been over a week long annual nightmare faced by Goans in the hosting of that IFFI which has in no way benefited the State but only been a big window of opportunity for the politicians in power to rake in huge moolah. Even the small contracts of all events have not been entrusted to our local artists. With its crumbling infrastructure Panaji is already a very congested city and the traffic chaos on account of IFFI is something the city could do without. With the fun and frolic at tax payers’ expense, IFFI has only further burdened an already cash strapped State, besides the extra pile up of tons of garbage IFFI generates and the municipal authorities have to grapple with. The common man also suffers as the day to day government administration takes a break with officials all pre-occupied with the IFFI fiesta. IFFI has been a bonanza only to the workers of the political party in power and not been advantageous to the State. The ground reality is that what is being staged infact is the International Fraud Festival of India. Time to bid it a farewell and free Goa from this unwelcome extravaganza. Goa urgently and desperately needs hospitals and health centres, well resourced with good doctors and nurses with state of the art equipment and medicines. It does NOT need film festivals that does nothing for the people living in fear, confusion and poverty as a result of a pandemic and a failing economy caused by a total lack of political leadership and no will to plan and focus on real priorities. Goa needs dedicated politicians who will do everything to protect its citizens and not be masquerading as actors on vanity projects that often end up as scams. Aires Rodrigues Advocate High Court C/G-2, Shopping Complex Ribandar Retreat, Ribandar – Goa – 403006 Mobile No: 9822684372 Office Tel No: (0832) 2444012 Email: airesrodrigu...@gmail.com Or airesrodrig...@yahoo.com You can also reach me on Facebook.com/ AiresRodrigues Twitter@rodrigues_aires www.airesrodrigues.com