THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A report by the finance inspection wing of the government on Kerala State IT Infrastructure Ltd (KSITL) has recommended the recovery of Rs 16.15 lakh from the firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) through which the accused in the gold smuggling case, Swapna Suresh, was appointed in KSITL’s Space Park project.
The report, accessed by TOI, said that if the recovery is not possible from PwC, the amount should be recovered from IAS officer and former IT secretary M Sivasankar, KSITL MD Jayasankar Prasad and space park special officer Santhosh Kurup as it was their deliberate and planned move that had resulted in the appointment of Swapna Suresh who did not even have the required qualifications to be appointed as junior consultant in Space Park.
The report said that Rs 19.06 lakh was given to PwC for paying her salary and after deducting GST, Rs 16.15 lakh should be recovered. The report further said that KSITL should immediately put an end to appointments via consultants and must depend on employment exchanges for recruitment in unavoidable circumstances.
It also added that the administrative department of KSITL, which is the IT department, should ensure that appointments through project management units (PMUs) are done only after preparing a list of three or more candidates (with requisite qualifications) and choosing the right candidate after an interview by a selection committee. PwC was a PMU for Space Park project.
Last year, a report by the then chief secretary Vishwas Mehta and additional chief secretary (finance) Rajesh Kumar Singh had found that Swapna had approached the special officer for Space Park in August 2019, with a reference from the then IT secretary M Sivasankar, while still working as a secretary to the consul general of UAE. Also, MD of KSITL as well as the special officer for Space Park had cross-checked the reference of Swapna with Sivasankar and confirmed it.
The committee had also reported that the overall sequence of events show that Sivasankar had a hand in appointing a person with dubious credentials to a post in Space Park. The committee had then recommended blacklisting PwC for two years from participating in any projects by the state IT department, on the basis of which the government had issued an order banning the organization.
However, after PwC challenged the government decision in the high court, the court stayed the government order.
The FIW report on KSITL also found serious lapses in appointments in the organization. It said that while there were only six recognized posts and 15 other posts that were transferred from various other organisations in KSITL, 62 persons were appointed in KSITL from 2009 to 2020.
Of the 62, no details regarding the notification of the posts and the educational qualifications of 14 employees are available with KSITL, which is a serious lapse. Though the report was prepared and furnished to the department early this year, no action was taken.
