Dr Subramanian Swamy says everyone should be bothered about rampant corruption – Part 1

Dr Subramanian Swamy says everyone should be bothered about rampant corruption – Part 1

February 06, 2012 06:25 PM |   
 SOURCE: Moneylife Digital Team

The Janata Party President, speaking at Moneylife Foundation’s second anniversary program, explained why everyone should be bothered about corruption

“Corruption is the reason behind inflation. Loss to the exchequer means loss for the people, and results into misplaced priorities,” said Dr Subramanian Swamy, President of Janata Party. He was speaking on the occasion of the second anniversary of Moneylife Foundation.

Dr Swamy said how the encouragement to corrupt practices have dealt a blow to the country and its people. He said, “The 2G scam is probably the biggest we have seen, which the CAG estimates has led to a loss of Rs1.76 lakh crore. We would have a big part of our budget taken care of if we had that money.”

The Janata Party President said that the then Telecom Minister A Raja’s aim was to favour Unitech and Swan, two real estate companies, which had neither any experience nor any infrastructure in place in the telecom sector. “What made it worse was that Raja made the rule that even before rolling out their services, the companies can go for share dilution. Subsequently, many companies, including Swan (to UAE’s Etisalat), Unitech (to Norway’s Telenot) and Tata (to Japanes DoCoMo), all sold their stakes at eight to 30 times the price of purchase. If they can do it, what stops the government from doing so and recover the money,” Dr Swamy said.

The money which corrupt officials and ministers stash abroad in secret bank accounts must be brought back, he said. However, Indian government has been extremely reluctant to publish the names contained in the CD given by the German government that contains details of bank account holders in Liechtenstein and other tax havens. “If we get that money back, it will be enough to have an income tax free situation for 25 years, along with enough to finance all infrastructure, power and development projects in the country,” he said.

Dr Swamy also said how black money flows in and out of the Indian market unaccounted, and has huge implications. “The stock market is now almost a rigged market. The illegal cash is brought to India, and converted into rupees via participatory notes; money is invested in the market. The returns then are again sent abroad.”

“Black money is preferred in transactions which favour cash like real estate. No wonder prices shoot up abnormally. But the more importantly, it misplaces priorities. Because there is so much black money, all focus is towards luxury goods and services; and everyone keeps the prices high to make profits. As a result, the poor people have little that address their needs, and for them, participating in the economy becomes more difficult,” he said. Dr Swamy said that the fact that the economy is growing at 8% while inflation increases at 16%, violates the basic rules of economics that says that prices come down when supply increases.

“The one sector which has suffered the most is agriculture. India has the cheapest labour, and has more area under agriculture than many exporters. Yet our production is low; and even that is wasted away. Nutrition has suffered. There is no quality investment in agriculture. We can be a powerhouse in agriculture exporting to the West,” he said. “The dangerous thing about black money is that it is transferred abroad through the hawala route via Dubai, and every transaction is being recorded by ISI. So, they can blackmail our ministers any time they wish. That is what makes our government weak; and vulnerable to security risks. I wonder why Afzal Guru and Kasab are kept alive. Maybe our ministers are compromised bacuse the ISI has too much of dope on them.”