Goa Home Department claims US-based firm gave over $900,000 bribe to a Congress minister

Mumbai: In fresh revelations in the Goa Louis Berger bribery scam, the Home Department in its complaint has claimed that the Unites States based firm paid over $900,000 as bribe to a Congress minister to clear a water development project in 2010. An FIR was registered by the Crime Branch in connection with the case on Tuesday.

The complaint says that Loius Berger paid nearly a million dollars to an ex-minister to secure the drinking water project. The complaint cites the US court judgment asking the firm to pay a fine on bribery allegations. Sources say that Goa government will seek details for the case from US authorities.

Meanwhile, former Public Works Department (PWD) minister Churchill Alemao continues to insist that he had no hand in the scam. However, sources in the department say that Alemao had approved the drinking water project that is in question.

The Goa crime branch has started the investigation into the scam over allegations of kickbacks for the water development project sanctioned under the Congress government in Goa in 2010.

The agency on Tuesday summoned AM Wachasundar, project director of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the company which was part of the consortium behind the water project.

Wachasundar served as a chief engineer in the Public Works Department in Goa and was later appointed as the JICA's project director. He was summoned by Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar on Monday, and asked to submit a report on the case by Tuesday.