Officers of the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) conducted a ‘search’ at the seat of the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB), the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government’s special purpose vehicle for accelerating investment in infrastructure, on Thursday.
Officials privy to the Vigilance inspection said the investigators had sought files relating to at least five major projects announced in the State budget. The details of the inspection remained murky.
They collected some of the documents provided to them by the KIIFB officails, but it was unclear whether the investigators had taken custody of any important file since most of these are in their respective parent departments in the government Secretariat and not at the office of the special purpose vehicle.
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At one level, it appeared to be a routine exercise for vetting proposals for critical infrastructure projects in the State, but there were also unconfirmed reports that the inspections could be a follow-up on Vigilance Director Jacob Thomas’s complaint to the Chief Minister last month that the Finance Inspection Wing (FIW) was unduly devoting time to ‘wreak vengeance’ on him.
He had held Additional Chief Secretary (Finance) K.M. Abraham responsible for the ‘reprisal action’ which, according to him, had commenced once the VACB registered cases against former Finance Minister K.M. Mani.
Mr. Abraham had, during his meeting with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan along with other senior IAS officers, sought an independent inquiry against Mr. Thomas for the teaching assignment he had taken up in a private self-financing professional college.
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The KIIFB, chaired by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, has already cleared close to 50 projects with a total estimated outlay of Rs.4,005 crore for taking up several road and flyover projects, water supply augmentation schemes, construction of the Kerala Innovaction Zone, establishment of petrochemical and pharma park and construction of the first phase of the Technocity project.
The KIIFB has Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac as its vice chairman, Chief Secretary S.M. Vijayanand as its member, and Mr. Abraham as its chief executive officer, member-secretary and fund manager.