Dimapur, March 18 (MExN): The Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) has attributed the alleged appending of TR Zeliang’s signature as the Chief Minister in a document dated March 8 as a “clerical error.”
While Zeliang had relinquished the CM office on February 19, the document listing beneficiaries under the Chief Minister’s Road Development Fund (CMRDF) for 2016-17 amounting Rs. 12,50,00,000 had allegedly his signature as the CM.
Drawing attention to the said document, which was prominently doing round in social media and covered by “a section of the local media,” the CMO in a press statement clarified that the projects and beneficiaries “selected are genuine and the list was prepared in January and submitted to the department of Roads & Bridges on January 23, 2017.”
When the change of guards took place, the new Chief Minister suggested some alterations and a review meeting between the former Chief Minister and the new Chief Minister took place on March 8, 2017 where necessary changes were made.
“However, owing to clerical error, the designation of the former Chief Minister was not corrected and appeared on the document as what it had been when submitted on January 23,” the CMO claimed.
“The former Chief Minister too, through oversight, signed on the document as it was presented to him by the staffers,” it added attaching the document submitted on January 23 as a proof.
Stating that “the oversight is deeply regretted,” the CMO also assured to everyone that, “There never was and there never is any advertent intention on the part of the former Chief Minister to use his previous designation, nor is there any dual office of the Chief Minister in the State.”
The issue of “bamboozling and abetment of corruption in the system of Governance” as alleged and feared by a certain organization do not arise at all since the schemes are spread all over the State and implementation of the schemes and programs would take place under the supervision of the department concerned (R&B), it further clarified .
“It shall not behove any responsible organization or individual to jump the gun relying on a clerical mistake and shoot down the whole town due to a typing error,” the CMO statement added.
