KOCHI: Even as the state government has washed its hands of the corruption in the Wadakkanchery LIFE Mission project, gold smuggling case accused Swapna Suresh claimed that the UAE consul-general had met Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to avoid invitation of tenders for the project. The chief minister and the diplomat agreed on this at the meeting.
This was alleged by Swapna during the Enforcement Directorate (ED) interrogation held at the Attakulangara Women’s Prison on December 16 last year. As per her statement submitted by the ED at the High Court recently, the meeting between the consul-general and chief minister took place after UAE Red Crescent and LIFE Mission signed an MoU for the construction of apartments and a mini-hospital at Wadakkanchery for which close to `21 crore was provided by the charitable agency.
“It was decided at the time that the state government would invite tenders to identify the builder who could be entrusted with the project. But later, Khalid Mohammed Shoukry (finance head of the UAE Consulate) and the consul-general told me to inform M Sivasankar, former principal secretary, that this was a huge project and some benefits could be made,” she confessed to ED“I contacted Sivasankar to convey the same, and he told me that he would fix an appointment with the chief minister and he would approve the same,” she said.
“The consul-general and I went to the chief minister ’s house and met him in the presence of Sivasankar. The consul-general and chief minister agreed mutually that the former could identify the builder who would agree to their terms and conditions,” the statement read.