THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In what could emerge as a major turning point in the Life Mission contract row, the final agreement for the LIFE ( Livelihood, Inclusion and Financial Empowerment) Mission project of the state government to construct the housing scheme with a hospital at Wadakkanchery in Thrissur district was signed between UAE Consul General of the state directly and Unitac Builders.
As per the norms in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), the contract should be signed between Red crescent authority based in UAE and Unitac Builders and Developers. With the final agreement coming to the light, the state government and Red crescent are not in the picture.
The controversial agreement was signed on July 31, 2019 between UAE Consul General and Unitac managing partner Santosh Eapen. The agreement was to construct a housing complex and hospital on the government land.
On July 11,2019, UV Jose, LIFE Mission Chief Executive Officer under state government signed the MoU with Red crescent authority which is selected as the consultancy for the implementation of the project. However, the final agreement did not specify who the project consultant would be.
The deal between the UAE Red Crescent Authority and the state government stated that the MoU would forma framework so that the Red crescent would provide 1 crore UAE dirham to the state for housing complexes and a hospital. This will be executed as per the understanding between the government and Red crescent.
However, the UAE Consulate was involved in the two agreements with the builder directly. One is a contract worth Rs 14.24 crore ( 70 lakh UAE dirham) with Unitac builders for the housing complex and other is the contract for a women and children hospital adjacent to the plot for Rs 6.10 crore ( 30 lakh UAE dirham) Unitac' sister company Sane ventures in Ernakulam.
The controversy on the deal was triggered after allegations that a large sum of money was handed over as commission to the facilitators of the project. This comes following the revelation of a key accused of gold smuggling case , Swapna Suresh to National Investigation Agency that she allegedly received Rs 1 crore as commission from the builder.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) which is running a parallel probe into the gold smuggling case had also asked the state government for details of its Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by the government’s Life Mission and UAE based non-governmental organization Red Crescent. The ED wrote to the Chief Secretary of the state on Saturday, seeking details of the deal made to construct houses for the homeless people in Thrissur’s Wadakkanchery. As per reports, the Ministry of External Affairs has also sought details of the MoU signed with Red Crescent from the state government.