Titanium bribegate

Another corruption catch in UPA regime out of the bag?

According to New York Times, the world famous consultancy firm McKinsey has got entangled in a bribery case involving Boeing. Its report became key evidence in a battle over the extradition of the powerful Ukrainian oligarch, Mr. Firtash, charged in a scheme to help Boeing.

In 2006, Desperate for new supplies but with increasing titanium prices, Boeing latched onto a promising lead. A group of six international businessmen with plentiful financing had offered to mine and process five million to 12 million pounds of the metal potentially worth $500 million annually, much of it for sale to Boeing. The group, Bothli Trade A.G., controlled by Mr. Firtash, had already signed a memorandum of understanding for a joint mining venture with the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.

Boeing turned to McKinsey & Company, the consulting firm with the golden pedigree, purveyor of “best practices” advice to partner with this group. McKinsey says it advised Boeing of the risks of working with the oligarch Mr. Firtash, who had made billions of dollars brokering gas sales to Ukraine from Russia and former Soviet republics, and recommended “character due diligence.”

McKinsey described what it said was the potential partner’s strategy for winning mining permits. It included bribing Indian officials. The mining venture never materialized, but Mr. Firtash was indicted on charges of directing $18.5 million in bribes to Indian officials for mining permits.

McKinsey’s report on Boeing, will now haunt the erstwhile Indian regime of rampant corruption and would engage legal hawks like Dr Subramaniam Swamy, who would champion such cases! Watch out for big news….

Congress was ruling both at the centre and the AP state at the time the Rs 100 crore bribe was paid for getting the mining rights. An Indian official has been indicted (the name is not revealed to the public as the trial by the grand jury was held in camera) who would likely to be requested by US for extradition from india to face the trial along with the Ukrainian oligarch Firtash. When the indian official spills the beans, which top political head in india would roll? This would happen in the lifetime of the present political dispensation as unlike in india, US does not take a long time to pronounce verdicts in courts (though YSR is not alive)!

UPA cupboard is full of skeletons; how does Rahul propose to cover the lid, as his ‘hit and run’ strategy would not bail him out in this case? God only knows!!

Interestingly it is a potential arsenal to BJP, though nothing conclusive would be revealed not before the elections, but plenty of axe to grind and masala to chew that would cause perceptible damage to congress by the ruling dispensation!