The Bhutanese Leading the way.
Few months back Debsi community under Chang gewog, Thimphu alleged foul play and tampering in the accounts of the Debsi bridge construction. The gewog residents back then strongly demanded for transparency in the accounts and accountability measures to be exercised for those involved and guilty in the whole case.
The Debsi community has now formed a new committee where the present Gup as the chairman will present the details of the amount that was collected then.
In 2007 people of Debsi contributed millions to construct a motorable bridge but five years later the community got a bridge that was falling apart and there was total lack of transparency over the budget.
The Debsi community collected an amount of Nu 500 per decimal from 228 thram holders to construct a bailey bridge to connect the gewog with Thimphu.
However the bridge deteriorated into a dilapidated state almost in the immediacy of its completion. The planks of the bridges were worn-out and filled the bridge with huge holes which required frequent maintenance by the community.
“We have around 7 members in the committee who will now look into this matter,” said the Chang Gup, Ugyen. In addition, the manner in which the budget was allotted for the construction of the bridge would be checked by listing those who didn’t contribute.
In his earlier interview with this paper the Gup said that notification was sent to former Debsi Gup regarding the accountability and transparency of the public budget collected during his tenure. But he didn’t turn up even after two notifications.
He said, there was no concrete response from him and he couldn’t take instant action.
“Even when we had personal talks I tried to discuss but he ignored the talk,” he said. Therefore the new members will seek out the issue and create transparency on bleak accounts.
Meanwhile the Debsi Bridge which was under renovation with the Gewog Budget is finally completed. According to Gup Ugyen the budget allotted for the renewal of the bridge was above Nu 0.2mn.
“This year we didn’t collect money to renovate the bridge instead we have adjusted from the gewog budget to achieve all the set development plans,” said the Gup in his earlier interview.
Actually the budget was allotted to construct Gewog Gup’s Office in a new location that is on the other side of Wangchu River since it is located in Royal Institute of Management (RIM) vicinity. However the plan was cancelled as it was not practical or accessible for people to visit Gewog officials for works in the new location.
The gewog decided to reconstruct the bridge from the gewogs budget as Lyonchhen Jigme Y. Thinley had also decided not to shift the Gewog office keeping into consideration the importance of local Government.
The Gup said total budget to construct Gup’s office was around Nu 4mn, from where the budget is allocated for all the development plans for the gewog.
