11-01-2005, 03:31 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Oilgate in India </b>
The Pioneer Edit Desk
Given the utterly opaque manner in which the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government has been functioning, one had to be singularly naïve to expect that it would take credible steps to investigate the Volcker Committee's findings.
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What, however, even seasoned political observers did not expect was the breathtaking alacrity with which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh rushed to give Foreign Minister Natwar Singh a clean chit, saying that the evidence presented by the Committee was "insufficient" to arrive at any "adverse conclusion". Such unusually prompt response - without even going through the motions of holding an inquiry - was, to say the least, strange, given the seriousness of the Committee's finding that the Congress Party and External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh were among the "non-contractual beneficiaries" of Iraqi oil sales in 2001. Both the volume of oil and the cash involved are substantial.
According to the Committee's report, the Congress party was allotted four million barrels of oil, and Mr Singh, an equal volume in two installments of two million barrels each, via the Swiss energy company Masefield AG. This entitled them to commission on sales which would have fetched them a profit of $250,000 to $300,000 on the high side and $50,000 to $100,000 on the low side, on the sale of every one million barrels.
According to the report, 1,001 barrels and 1,936 barrels were actually lifted against the allotment made to the Congress and Mr Natwar Singh respectively. Thus the amounts involved are by no means small. More important, however, is the implication of the allotment, which clearly represented an attempt by the authorities to influence the policies of what in 2001 was India's principal opposition party and which is now the main constituent of the UPA Government at the Centre.
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The primary - albeit not an unimportant - question is not whether Mr Natwar Singh has received the money; he may well not have received any and had merely asked a conduit for the flow of funds to the Congress and no more. What is of concern is the question of foreign influence on India's policies, which gives to the entire matter a dimension that allotments to a minor politician like Mr Bhim Singh (against which no oil was lifted) or the Messrs Reliance Industries, a private company, do not have. Both Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have, therefore, a responsibility to reveal, in a manner that carries conviction, what exactly has happened.
By giving a certificate to Mr Natwar Singh in unseemly haste, the Prime Minister has only created the impression that he was trying to sweep the scandal under the carpet. This has severely dented the Government's credibility and his own image. As an intelligent man, he should know this and also the fact that if there is anything from which he can draw some consolation, it is the contortions of the CPI(M) which, in a bid to be too-clever-by-half, has made a stunning display of its hypocrisy.
It has, demanded that the Government investigate the matter, brazenly ignoring the fact that the Government's main prop, the Congress, is in the dock in this case. But then one could hardly have expected the heirs to those exposed by the Mitrokhin Archives-II to take make things difficult for others accused of receiving foreign funds. Birds of the same feather help each other.
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The Pioneer Edit Desk
Given the utterly opaque manner in which the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government has been functioning, one had to be singularly naïve to expect that it would take credible steps to investigate the Volcker Committee's findings.
Â
What, however, even seasoned political observers did not expect was the breathtaking alacrity with which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh rushed to give Foreign Minister Natwar Singh a clean chit, saying that the evidence presented by the Committee was "insufficient" to arrive at any "adverse conclusion". Such unusually prompt response - without even going through the motions of holding an inquiry - was, to say the least, strange, given the seriousness of the Committee's finding that the Congress Party and External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh were among the "non-contractual beneficiaries" of Iraqi oil sales in 2001. Both the volume of oil and the cash involved are substantial.
According to the Committee's report, the Congress party was allotted four million barrels of oil, and Mr Singh, an equal volume in two installments of two million barrels each, via the Swiss energy company Masefield AG. This entitled them to commission on sales which would have fetched them a profit of $250,000 to $300,000 on the high side and $50,000 to $100,000 on the low side, on the sale of every one million barrels.
According to the report, 1,001 barrels and 1,936 barrels were actually lifted against the allotment made to the Congress and Mr Natwar Singh respectively. Thus the amounts involved are by no means small. More important, however, is the implication of the allotment, which clearly represented an attempt by the authorities to influence the policies of what in 2001 was India's principal opposition party and which is now the main constituent of the UPA Government at the Centre.
Â
The primary - albeit not an unimportant - question is not whether Mr Natwar Singh has received the money; he may well not have received any and had merely asked a conduit for the flow of funds to the Congress and no more. What is of concern is the question of foreign influence on India's policies, which gives to the entire matter a dimension that allotments to a minor politician like Mr Bhim Singh (against which no oil was lifted) or the Messrs Reliance Industries, a private company, do not have. Both Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have, therefore, a responsibility to reveal, in a manner that carries conviction, what exactly has happened.
By giving a certificate to Mr Natwar Singh in unseemly haste, the Prime Minister has only created the impression that he was trying to sweep the scandal under the carpet. This has severely dented the Government's credibility and his own image. As an intelligent man, he should know this and also the fact that if there is anything from which he can draw some consolation, it is the contortions of the CPI(M) which, in a bid to be too-clever-by-half, has made a stunning display of its hypocrisy.
It has, demanded that the Government investigate the matter, brazenly ignoring the fact that the Government's main prop, the Congress, is in the dock in this case. But then one could hardly have expected the heirs to those exposed by the Mitrokhin Archives-II to take make things difficult for others accused of receiving foreign funds. Birds of the same feather help each other.
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