The Satyam Saga: L&T denies revival plans, investigators find more made up statistics

   Print    Email

Email To		[Close]
		You must make entries in all fields
Your Email
Your Name
Send to Email
		Send

The extent of the manipulations made by Ramalinga Raju and his confidants at Satyam over the past seven years is keeping investigators busy as they uncover gory details on a regular basis even after an entire fortnight has passed since the fraud came to light.

More fake numbers

In the latest developments, the public prosecutor has confirmed speculations that Satyam had indeed lied about their employee count and diverted money to the tune of Rs. 20 crore every month in the name of 13,000 fictional employees.� Apart from this monthly exercise, it had also falsified its Fixed Deposits. A media report also said that Satyam’s former CFO, Srinivas Vadlamani, had confessed to creating 10,000 fake jobs in the company’s records.

L&T stays out

Putting an end to reports that L&T had formulated a plan for Satyam’s rescue and that it was considering buying the Bangalore based IT Company, a spokesman for the engineering company rubbished the media reports which had been doing the rounds for a couple of days now. He told Reuters that his company had not made any presentations to Satyam Computers.

Crucial Board meetings on Thursday and Friday

The government appointed board, who have the herculean task to steer Satyam out of a possible fall into extinction, will meet today and tomorrow to discuss on issues regarding the appointment of the new CEO, CFO and how they will go about securing working capital. The appointments of the key officials will most likely be made later today. The board stated that it was in the process of arranging financial strength by initiating recoveries on receivables and approaching banks for loans. It also plans to make use of Satyam’s physical assets like its considerable real estate holdings to garner bank loans by mortgaging them.

Regulators come under CAG scanner

After the dismal job that the regulators, Security and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) and Insurance Regulatory Development Authority of India (IRDA), did in detecting corporate governance flaws which let the seven year long Satyam fraud run unnoticed, the Comptroller and Auditor General has taken a strict stance and said that the two entities might soon be put under its scrutiny. The CAG has expressed its displeasure at Sebi and IRDA for not putting their funds in public accounts, despite a government directive to do so, in a strongly-worded letter to the finance ministry shortly after the Satyam Saga started making headlines.

The share prices of the beleaguered company did brighten up a bit, however. As the BSE opened on Thursday, its prices rose by an encouraging 8% in spite of the news of two more overseas clients considering contract termination.