Beat this: Crorepati Goa MLAs want to pay for their World Cup junket in EMIs

Four Goa MLAs, including a minister, are yet to pay back Rs 89 lakh that the government spent on each of them during their visit to Brazil on a fully-funded World Cup junket in July this year. [caption id=“attachment_2030243” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Goa Fisheries Minister Avertano Furtado.[/caption] Fisheries Minister Avertano Furtado, legislators Carlos Almeida, Glen Ticlo  and Benjamin Silva had promised to spend their own money on the trip after a media furore over their ’educational tour’. Now, the MLAs,who have assets worth crores, claim they will pay back the amount in installments, Mumbai Mirror reports. During an interaction with the media last week, Fisheries Minister Furtado when repeatedly asked why he has not payed back the full amount till now, said he had returned around Rs 3 lakh and would complete the rest in installments, O Heraldo reported. For the junket, the Sports Authority of Goa had paid Rs 89 lakh for the travel, accommodation and match tickets to Fans of Stands, a Bangalore-based sports event management firm which drew up the travel plans for the legislators. “We asked the MLAs to individually refund the remaining expenses on three separate occasions in July, September and November, but we are yet to hear from them,” SAG executive director Sandeep Jacques told Mumbai Mirror. The latest notice sent to the MLAs was on the first of this month. The legislators, though, have not yet acknowledged its receipt. In mid December last year, Goa Sports Minister Ramesh Tawadkar had said that the four ruling legislators, including a cabinet minister, who promised in June to refund the Rs.89 lakh spent on a football World Cup junket to Brazil, have defaulted in paying the amount. Tawadkar told reporters that only part of the money spent on the junket was reimbursed to the state treasury by Fisheries Minister Furtado, legislators Carlos Almeida, Glen Ticlo (both from the BJP) and Benjamin Silva (independent legislator supporting the government), who went to Brazil in July. “We have issued them notice,” he said. Seven ruling lawmakers from Goa, including three ministers, had booked a fully-funded junket to the football world cup worth nearly Rs 1 crore, sanctioned by the chief minister. The furore caused by the state-funded junket in the media forced three Brazil-bound legislators to drop out of the junket, while the rest promised to refund the money to the Sports Authority of Goa (SAG), which was coordinating the ’education tour’. SAG sources said Rs 25 lakh was yet to be recovered from the four lawmakers, who eventually made the trip. With inputs from IANS