The Hindu Business Line : Giving wrong opinion with dishonest intention is the worst form of corruption

STOCK market scam of 1992, Enron imbroglio, the project that Quattrochi wanted, and disinvestment problems: On these and more, G. V. Ramakrishna writes in Two Scores and Ten, published by Academic Foundation (www.academicfoundation.com), capturing about half a century of action.

"During the early years after Independence, the country was fortunate to have gentlemen politicians and cultured ministers with a history of sacrifice, and dedicated civil servants," he writes nostalgically. "What we see today is a far cry from those days."

In one of the early chapters, GVR writes about the confusion in the construction of the Pittsburgh temple in mid-1975.

The police there wanted to arrest groups that were almost coming to blows at a meeting and wanted to keep the Embassy informed. Indians there had acquired an old church building that was going cheap and the dispute was whether the temple should be exclusively for Lord Venkateswara or whether it should provide for worshippers of Lord Shiva too.

Perhaps it is not only accountants who fight among themselves. GVR recounts that in 1993, there were 35 Indian associations in the greater Washington area, "one for each state and sometimes one for each subdivision of the state".

It may interest professionals that the author's proposal on municipal property tax — based on plinth area and factoring in variables such as age, type of construction, location and purpose of use — instead of the "subjective system of determining Annual Rental Value" found opposition because the new system was objective and transparent and so had the potential to reduce corruption!

Chapter 5 is on `industry' with spicy stuff: "The minister wanted me to go on leave or else he would spoil my record." An observation about Gujarat is insightful: "A feature of the bureaucracy in Gujarat was the forward looking, business friendly and entrepreneurial approach of most of the officers. It was almost a seamless relationship between the government and the business community.

This probably explains the progress made in Gujarat during those days."

Then comes `coal' where you find that the minister "got in touch with the coal company chiefs and asked for the purchase papers", and the amount involved was Rs 2,000 crore.

Thereafter, a stint with the "generous, impetuous and whimsical" NTR, and back to the Planning Commission where "one could not be action-oriented." 1985, he stops at Petroleum Ministry, "a hot place", where one had to watch one's step, and where "the scope for corruption was enormous depending on the officials and the minister."

You'd read about the HBJ pipeline, a project worth more than Rs 1,700 crore.

On his stint in Tamil Nadu during President's Rule, GVR writes, among other things, about the revenue leakage in liquor retailing, and the `Farm Pond Scheme' to trap water in Thanjavur. On the latter, he adds that the scheme was `a huge success': "Apart from stabilising the paddy crop, the fish, the bananas and vegetables grown around the ponds gave a handsome income. The farmers' income had gone up by 60 per cent."

But that's a project ailing under lack of follow-up, he notes. "Even now it is not too late to revive the project."

Chapter 11 is on `SEBI'. "When I reached Bombay, no one in the capital markets had heard about me. The financial circles showed an amused curiosity... At one of the early meetings with the Press I was asked whether I had dealt in shares. When I replied in the negative I was asked how I was qualified to handle SEBI. I asked in return, whether, when they went to a cardiologist would they ask if he had undergone a bypass operation! The Press gradually began to warm up to me thereafter."

The epilogue discourses on three types of corruption: First, the cutting edge corruption of the police inspector or the sub-registrar that calls for "citizen activism along with computerisation and transparency".

Second, the high level corruption at the level of senior officers in the government and the public sector, politicians and ministers, an area that is under the realm of the CVC.

Third is the more subtle intellectual corruption — "giving a wrong opinion with the dishonest intention of pleasing the minister, for favours by way of postings and transfers apart from sharing the illegal gains."

We may say that irresponsible audit opinions would fit the last category, though the beneficiaries are not ministers but the management. "There is hope for the future, but it has to be tempered by the reality of today's situation," is how GVR wraps up optimistically. Good read.

BooksOfAccount@TheHindu.co.in

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