Satyam: will we ever know the whole truth?

Sam Varghese
Monday, 09 February 2009 12:00

IT Industry - Market

In India, it is impossible to remain the chief executive of a high-profile company without rubbing shoulders with politicians. But the moment the brown stuff hits the ceiling - when the CEO gets sacked or the politician thrown out of office - one will not acknowledge the other.
B. Ramalinga Raju, the chief executive of Satyam, who admitted defrauding the company some months ago in order to pretend that it was doing better than it was, may well be digesting this sad truth.

The man may have to front up for an investigation by the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), if the efforts of the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, his own state, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, succeed.

Strangely, Reddy was Raju's best mate not so long ago. Indeed, one of the reasons Reddy is pushing for the probe is because he is under pressure from the Federal government to explain the favoured treatment meted out to Raju when he was flying high.

The relationships between industry and government are cozy in India. Favours flow back and forth - for every little infrastructure project government sanction is needed and hence the relationship that the top man (it is always a man) of a company has with the powers-that-be plays an important role in helping the company make headway, both financially and otherwise.

And when the elections come around, who else can the politicians turn to, but the leaders of big companies, so that they can fund their sleazy election campaigns?

The outsourcing companies have been favoured with huge parcels of prime land and a lot of infrastructure has been built to benefit them. A great many questions will now be asked about favours doled out to Satyam, especially by Reddy's political opponents within his own party.

While Satyam now claims to have found the right leader for its operations - as reported on iTWire, a HR man, A.S. Murthy has been appointed as CEO - its troubles are far from over.

The company may well find it difficult to attract workers as it did before, given the extent of the fraud that was committed. One of the limiting factors for the outsourcing industry in recent years has been finding people who can put up with the coolie work that these companies do.

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