Author: Ritu Sarin
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: May 22, 2006
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/story/4900.html
Introduction: Gujral govt was in power: Payment
made into Cayman Islands account by Australian Wheat Board, say documents
with team probing AWB role in oil-for-food scandal; Australian A-G office
says we followed up CBI request, but 'no further action' was sought
An Australian investigation into the Iraqi
oil-for-food programme has come up with documentary evidence to show $2.5
million (Rs 11.25 crore) was paid as commission in a 1998 India wheat deal.
The import of wheat from Australia was the
subject of a CBI inquiry which was formally closed two years ago for alleged
lack of documentary support from the Australians.
But documents which now form part of a probe
by Commissioner Terence Cole into illegal payments made by the Australian
Wheat Board (AWB) to Saddam Hussein's Iraq link AWB to corrupt deals in other
markets, including India.
Incidentally, AWB is at the centre of a new
row over the UPA government's fresh wheat imports. Of the 500,000 tonnes ordered
from Australia, 100,000 tonnes have already arrived in India.
According to reports published in The Age
(Melbourne) and The Sydney Morning Herald, Commissioner Cole has obtained
documents which show that AWB paid $2.5 million as commission to a bank account
in the Cayman Islands as part of an order for export of two million tonnes
of wheat to India's United Front government in February, 1998.
It is not clear who AWB paid in the Cayman
Islands and why.The contract in question is the Rs 1,200 crore import deal
finalised during the last days of the I K Gujral government. The NDA government,
which came to power thereafter, ordered a CBI inquiry. But the agency formally
closed its case in 2004 for alleged lack of document support from Australian
authorities.
But revelations in the Australian media indicate
that AWB officials were aware, since October 2001, they had documents linking
the wheat import to the pay-off scandal.
This link emerged because documents supplied
to Commissioner Cole by former AWB chairman Trevor Flugge show that in October
2001 (a month after the CBI asked the Australians for assistance in investigations)
AWB's ex-Chief Executive, Andrew Lindberg, informed the company's Directors
that they had traced a money trail linking the Indian contract to commissions
paid to a company in the Cayman Islands.
This is what Lindberg has been quoted as having
told the AWB Board in his lengthy report: "AWB's searches to obtain information
have uncovered documents alluding to a payment of a commission or rebate of
US $2.5 million to a company in the Cayman Islands... The Commission Agreement
has not been located although there are suggestions that such a document did
exist."
According to The Age and Sydney Morning Herald,
an embarrassed AWB has begun an exhaustive internal probe and is scrutinizing
all correspondence and emails pertaining to the Indian contract of the pre-1998
period, when the company was still owned by the Australian government.
As reported by The Indian Express, it was
on September 11, 2001 that the CBI converted its Preliminary Enquiry (PE)
into the wheat import to a formal FIR. The FIR named three top bureaucrats:
former Cabinet Secretary T S R Subramanian, former Food Secretary B K Taimni
and former chairman of State Trading Corporation S M Dewan.
The CBI waited six months for documents from
the AWB and then filed a Letter Rogatory (LR) via diplomatic channels to Australia,
also to ascertain whether any broker was involved in the contract or any commission
paid.
The CBI's FIR had alleged that the bureaucrats
had ordered the wheat import without taking proper stock of the country's
procurement situation, that the import served "no public interest"
and that the bureaucrats had "caused undue pecuniary benefits to themselves/others."
"The accused persons, by their acts of
commission and omissions as well as abuse of official position, caused huge
pecuniary loss to the Government running into more than Rs 1,000 million (Rs
100 crore) and corresponding gain to the AWB... The said wheat could not be
made use of profitably and it was imported without real requirement and some
of it had to be sold later on as a distress sale by the FCI," concluded
the FIR.
Incidentally, in comments to The Age and Sydney
Morning Herald, a spokesperson of the Australian Attorney General informed
that "appropriate inquiries" were made by Australian authorities
when the CBI's request came and that subsequently, "no further action"
was requested of the Australian government. The spokesperson is quoted as
saying that the AG's office has handed over all documents of India's "defunct
investigation" to the Cole inquiry.
CCEA cleared the import, wheat landed when Vajpayee was PM: Gujral
o I K Gujral, former Prime Minister: The wheat
import was cleared by the CCEA which the Finance Minister headed. While the
import was ordered during my tenure as Prime Minister, the consignments landed
when Atal Behari Vajpayee was PM. If any further revelations have been made,
I am happy about it.
o T S R Subramanian, former Cabinet Secretary:
As Cabinet Secretary, I only recorded a decision taken by six Cabinet Ministers.
The CBI wasted several years in its probe and found nothing. The Cabinet Secretary
was not involved in choosing the STC for executing the imports.
o P C Sharma, former CBI Director: We hardly
got any help from the Australians when we asked for assistance but they appear
to have revealed a lot to their own inquiry team. A CBI Director visited Australia
for the probe. In the end, we had no option but to close the case.
-ritu.sarin@expressindia.com