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)
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