STOCKHOLM, Aug 26: The Bofors company paid 250 million ‘kroner (rs 50 crore) to Indian or lother middlemen to obtain a huge ‘arms contract in New Delhi, Mr. Wars Erick Thunholm, the head of Bofors parent company, Nobel Industries, said here on Wednesday.
Mr. Thunholm said that he does not know or care” whether Indian agents paid by Bofors used Sums for bribing administration ‘officials in India.
Mr. Thunholm was responding to repeated demands from the ‘Swedish Government and Indian Jegislators that Bofors clarify the transactions in connection with the howitzer deal.
Interviewed by Swedish Radio, Mi. Thumholm stated that “we were bound by an agreement we that to conclude” with Bofors ageints who had worked forcloseto 10 ‘years to obtain business for the form, I Asked whether he thought 5oMe Of the money paid (0, agents ‘yes used to bribe Indian officials, Mr, Thunholm said, “I don’t know, but We cannot guarantee it did jot. We paid money to cancel the ‘contract, in the manner asked. It is not our responsibility to check how the Indians acted in relation switch the authorities there. That is something that has to be investigated in India.
We have not paid bribes,” he declared, adding that “I don’t see why that would have been necessary as the Indian Government ‘was anxious to acquire our guns.”
Asked if he did not care about alleged bribe payments, the Nobel President first replied, “no” but later added that “we would find it embarrassing if money had been used for what you call bribes.”
Mr. Thunholm, who is also had of one of Sweden’s leading banks which transferred some of the large amounts, said it is “common practice” to use agents in absence of their own offices in India and “not at all unusual” to pay agents through anonymous Swiss numbered accounts on request,
He declined to give details on any of the recipients except to say that he “thinks there are both and theirs” behind the still unpublished companies to which the sums ‘were paid.
Meanwhile, Reuter adds: Mr. Thunhoim denied any wrongdoing in Bofors’ methods of gaininga$12billion contract from the Indian Army for field guns, but said he could not account for what Thad happened to money paid to Bofors agents in India.
He said any unaccounted payments in the deal had been severance payoffs made to agents after the Company complied with a 1985 demand by the Prime Minister, Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, that no middlemen should be involved in the negotiations.
“We were tied by an agreement. It cost us money to free ourselves from it. We have paid the money in the way we were asked to do,” he said, referring to the severance Payments.
Article extracted from this publication >> September 4, 1987
