Volcker report: India Inc refutes charges
By agencies   |   Wednesday, 09 November 2005, 20:30 IST
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NEW DELHI: India Inc has strongly refuted the Volcker Committee allegations that 123 Indian companies had taken ''undue'' advantage of a United Nations-supervised Oil-for-Food program operated for Iraq. ''No Indian company received any undue benefit (or) profit out of supplies made to Iraq,'' Assocham President Anil K Agarwal insisted. ''I strongly refute the charge as baseless,'' Agarwal said. The Assocham statement has dismissed all the allegations saying as for Indian companies, ‘‘this has been purely commercial transaction as envisaged under the provision of UN Oil-for-Food program.'' Agarwal said the system was ''very open, transparent and fully controlled by United Nations Committee 661.'' “Each contract was thoroughly checked for items, unit price, quantity and total value and forwarded to the Indian and the Iraqi governments to be put into operation only after the approval of the Committee which had representatives of the Permanent five- the U.S., Britain, China, Russia and France,” he pointed out The Assocham also said that Banque Nationale de Paris, New York started letter of credit in favor of Indian banks for account of the Indian exporters, at the insistence of the Iraqi government. It also said that the Indian companies ''were duly declaring the cost, insurance, freight, outward freight charges from Indian port to Iraqi port and inland transportation charges if any or after sale service if any in the export documents.'' The statement said the goods were ''duly inspected and cleared by Indian Excise, Customs and other agencies.'' All payments were sent through the Indian Banking channels through authorized dealers as declared in the export documents.

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