By Our Staff Writer NEW DELHI: The Comptroller and Auditor General indited the government on several counts on the controversial deal for the purchase of 155 mm howitzers, together with ammunition and other hardware from the Swedish arms manofacturer A.B. Bofors.
The report was tabled in the Lok Sabha after a three month delay on July 18 has listed a number of lapses in not only the technical and financial evaluation of the armour leading to the decision to award the contract to Bofors, but also on the manner in which the government had failed to ensure that there were no middlemen involved in the deal.
About $50 million of the total cost was reportedly paid in com missions to three middle men, non-Indian arms brokers whose names have not been made public.
The report of the CAD virtually debunks the report of the Joint Parliamentary Committee headed by Congress I MP and former minister B. Shankranand which had virtually exonerated the government.
It held that the assessment of costs leading to awards of the contract to Bofors was flawed in several ways. The technical evaluation of the gun system and ammunition suffered from deficiency.
No General Staff Qualitative Requirement was not prepared nor was there a metric, in the absence of which it was difficult to assess the various characteristics of the gun systems being offered. The CAD’s verdict of the deal confirms the suspicions that have prevailed over the last two years. It has also turned the spotlight on several other curious aspects which will undoubtedly fuel controversy.
The opposition contends that despite the absence of concrete evidence, Gandhi personally received millions of dollars in bribes in connection with the arms deals.
V.P. Singh Gandhi’s former finance minister and now his principal political fore as head of a coalition of Indian opposition parties, has given reporters the numbers of Swiss Bank Accounts in which some of the commissions are said to have been deposited. Singh alleged that Gandhi was the beneficiary of the accounts.
Gandhi conceded in an interview that the disclosures by VP. Singh damaged him politically, but denied that he took the bribes in the Bofors deal.
There are other scandals buffeting Gandhi’s government, allegations of kickbacks and official improprieties ranging from the acquisition of fodder machines, in which the Lok Sabha speaker Balram Jakhar is involved, to deliberate government price fixing in the newsprint industry as a way of gagging the largely antiGandhi Press are amongst the prominent ones.
Article extracted from this publication >> July 28, 1989
