Political Diary

New Delhi, 9 May 2015

Public Office For Private Profit

CONFLICT OF INTEREST, TOH KYA?

By Poonam I Kaushish

It’s been a week of ugly home truths about our rulers which has exposed the public office for private profit in our all-powerful Government system.  Forget Greed for Power, today it’s all about the Power of Greed whereby the lust for riches overpowers all else. Exposing our fallacious tryst with good governance!

Welcome the ‘surrogate Mantris club a la Union Transport & Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari and Punjab’s father-son duo Chief Minister Badal and his Deputy Sukhbir. They epitomize a ‘democracy of concessions’ or ‘concessions of State power’ and politics of direct sale’. With the winner taking it all!

All hell broke loose in the Rajya Sabha Friday last over the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) report red-flagging Gadkari’s Purti group defaulting in returning over Rs 12 crores of the Rs 84 crores it had taken as loan from Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Ltd (IREDA) for setting up a 22 MW bagasse-based power project in Maharashtra in March 2002. 

The Congress refuses to buy Gadkari’s explanation that he had resigned as Chairman of Purti in 2011 and demands he resign, else they would stall the House. Add to it, they taunt him over his two earlier escapades: enjoying industrialist Ruia’s hospitality on their luxury yacht stationed in the French Riviera waters 7-9 July 2013.

Two, the Income Tax discovery of irregularities in over 12 firms with bogus addresses investing in Gadkari Purti’ in 2012 and evading Rs. 70 million via improper means which resulted in his failing to be re-elected as BJP president in January 2013. Big deal, if this smacks of conflict of interest between his public duties and private interest? Toh kya.

If this was bad, worse preceded this. In Punjab’s Moga district staffers of a bus tried molesting a teen-aged girl, failing which they pushed her to death. Predictably, all hell broke lose when it became public that the bus belonged to the Badals’ company, Orbit Aviation with Sukhbir and his wife Harsimrat, Union Minister for Food Processing being the majority shareholders.

Wring your hands all you want, but that does not take away from the fact that morality, honesty and integrity are words non-existent in the political vocabulary. Raising a moot point: How long will we accept State-funded narcissism at one end, interspersed with our polity’s experiments in untruth to the unprecedented private-public partnership in our all-powerful Government system? When will our netagan stop their immoral dhanda? Who is the culprit in whose eyes?

Undoubtedly, Gadkari and Badal’s have taken recourse to a loophole in the Office of Profit Bill. The Bill bars a MP from occupying any Government positions but does not restrict him from holding a position in a corporate. Plainly there is a need to plug this lacuna and include the private sector as well in the Office of Profit Bill.

Today we live in an era, where public morality and practical politics has acquired a particularly grotesque dimension and a surfeit of classic illustrations of crony capitalism abound.  Confessed a seasoned politician: Is hamam me hum sab nange hain.

From the 2G spectrum scam, Adarsh Housing Society scandal, Coalgate wherein coal blocks were given to families and friends of UPA Ministers, Congress and its allies MPs’ or people close to the Party. And the infamous Nira Radia tapes encompassing industrialists, media, netagan, babudom et al.

Shockingly, in 2011 a RTI application made public Rajya Sabha’s Register of Interest whereby 92 of Rajya Sabha’s 232 MPs had pecuniary interests including remunerative directorship, regular remunerated activity, shareholding of controlling nature, paid consultancy and professional engagement.

More scandalous, they were members of Standing Committees in which they had business interests. From Maharashtra’s newspaper baron Vijay Darda and Reliance Petroleum’s director YP Trivedi who were part of the Standing Committee on Finance and the Consultative Committee of Commerce and Industry Ministry to Bihar’s pharmaceutical tycoon Mahendra Prasad aka 'King Mahendra'.

Then we witnessed  DMK Union Shipping Minister TR Baalu’s shenanigans in the erstwhile UPA Government as he “put in a word” to the then Petroleum Minister Murli Deora to provide gas to family-owned King Power Corporation. Being run by his sons post his resignation as Managing Director subsequent to becoming a Minister. After all, he was only helping his sons? Did you expect him to help others’ children?

Tamil Nadu’s Marans are also entangled in cases of conflict of interest, one of the most blatant misuse of power is the allotment of 323 high-speed telephone lines to his residence to help family enterprise, the Sun TV network.

Pertinently, under Rule 293 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business Rajya Sabha MPs have to declare their financial and business interest and professional consultancies within 90 days of taking oath in the Register of Interest to ascertain conflict of interest and it is mandatory for them to declare their interests before speaking on the floor of the House. But, it has never been followed. 

What next? The issue is not Gadkari and Badal’s business interests, but it once again underscores our politicians nee rulers are expected to be a notch above ordinary mortals and hence ‘more equal.’ Arguably, then they have no business to run enterprises or industry given that it would lead in a conflict of interest between power and pelf.

In case of a conflict of interest they need to rescue themselves from decisions where such a conflict exists. The imperative for recusal varies depends upon the circumstance and profession, either as common sense ethics, codified ethics, or by statute. The Representation of the People Act should be amended to ensure that those who want to represent us do not have direct or indirect business interests.

The best way to handle conflicts of interests is to avoid them. For example, an MP might sell all corporate stocks he owns before taking office and resign from boards. Or moves his stocks to a special “blind” trust, which would be authorized to buy and sell without disclosure to him. Since the MP would not know the companies the trust has invested in there would be no temptation to act to his advantage.

Clearly, time our polity realises people placed in positions of judgment or power must take extra steps to insure that their private interests do not compete with their professional duties leading to a conflict of interest. Whereby, a company in which a MP has financial interest benefit financially from his position of power.

The time has come for ‘we the people’ to take the bull by the horns and treat this cancer afflicting our democracy from the panchayat to the Central Government. Throw out our petty-power-at-all-cost leaders and rectify the perilous implications of crony capitalism destroying institutions. When the leaders become perpetrators who will judge the guilty?

In the ultimate, we have elected them to rule and govern. Our netas need to desist from becoming surreptitious businessmen. Given that when an undataa becomes a vyapari , the aam aadmi  is bound to become garib!.

Our netagan need to remember a home-truth: Public accountability is indispensable in a democratic set-up. With power comes responsibility. We need to expose the private mukhota of the public chehra. What gives? ---- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)