A Response to Media

Here is my response to the article SATYAM SCAM - POLITICS, MEDIA & LIES by some Ahmed Ali Shaik at the IBNlive.in.com.

Ahmed,

After reading “your version” of Satyam’s story I strongly feel that there should be “specialized” media people to cover specific issues rather than, say, asking a fashion journalist to cover a sports event.

I least bother to reply to you as an individual, but since you have published this blog at a public website, it is likely to be read by many. So here is my reply:

Note: I have quoted Ahmed in Italics and my responses are in regular font.

Disclaimer: I am a Satyam employee. But this reply is in the capacity of an individual, this is no way an official reply from Satyam.

Interestingly, Jan.11 was a Sunday and both the press conferences were held at the same time at 12 noon. This may be just a coincident.

I do not find anything “Interesting” about the press conferences held on Sunday as It was a hasty situation. It may be an off day for you guys but FYI people working in an emergency situation do not take off on Sundays.

This raises a suspicion that either DGP SSP Yadav lied to the Chief Minister or YSR was lying to the media. Whatever is the truth, the statements about the Satyam case started with lies?

Aren’t we used to politicians lying in our country. So another common thing, noting “interesting”.

The new board members too were not behind making tall statements about the Satyam Computers. Soon after their appointment, they started giving an impression that Satyam was a genuine company, with genuine employees, genuine clients and genuine revenues.

I find you as the first person doubting whether Satyam is a genuine company, with genuine employees, genuine clients and genuine revenues. It is not a difficult task for a media person to establish that with around 53000 employees available to testify. But it will require little bit of work and will kill the scope of your “sensational” comments.

If they are right, then there should be no doubts that Ramalinga Raju siphoned off Satyam's money from company's accounts. But sometimes their tone matched with Raju's claims.

It is sad that I have to remind a media person that it is not the question whether anybody or Satyam board has doubt or not, but no official comment can be made when the matter is under investigation.

On the day when Public Prosecutor told Nampally Criminal Court that Satyam's headcount of 53,000 was not genuine and there were over 10,000 fictitious employees, Ramalinga Raju issued a statement through his lawyer saying that the headcount figure of 53,000 was correct.

I can understand the lack of information of the public prosecutor in this matter in the first few days. But now that the issue has been confirmed by the board, that there is no inflation of the headcount and it remains close to 53000, there should be no reason to keep raising it. Can’t Raju, as an individual, make a statement if he has not done that particular thing?

This statement raises a question as to why did the board confirmed that 'prima facie' headcount was correct without even waiting for the reports of 'independent investigation process'. Are they trying to defend Raju? There are several other questions that deserve answers.

Simple, because negative media coverage hurts the employee moral, stock value and customer confidence. So the board can not wait. Was it that difficult to understand Ahmed?

Within a week after their appointment, new board members started praising Satyam. Deepak Parekh even claimed that Satyam has receivables of Rs.1700 crore. Exactly three days after his appointment, Parekh claimed, "The company on its book, as of today, has a large amounts of receivables due, if these receivables come on time, on due date, the company has adequate liquidity, the loans against these receivable are minimal. But we have to get the numbers authenticated and verified." How did he know about it within three days after his appointment and after spending just 6 hours in Satyam's campus?

It may be difficult to understand to you. But for a competent and empowered board it is possible.

In the last one month the new board met six times and to my understanding, it did not take any major decision.

Oh, really? I sincerely advice you to start reading news papers. That will help.

There were some reports saying that Satyam has added 15 new clients in January.

Wrong. To my knowledge, it was not about addition of new clients but about signing of new contracts with the existing clients.

The board has also appointed some independent auditors to restate the company's accounts. But the question is how will those agencies do the restatement? All the documents, even computers, related to Satyam's finance and accounts departments have been seized by the CID, SFIO and SEBI and nobody on behalf of Satyam approached these agencies for a copy of seized documents. No body knows since when the accounts were being fudged. So what will be the basic criteria that will be adopted to restate the accounts? On what grounds, the company's assets and liabilities would be ascertained? How this company would be valued which would facilitate its sale?

That is not impossible. Though I do not know what is actually happening, I will give you two examples:
i) The sensitive data are not saved only in a few local computers but there are provisions of data replications, to avoid accidental loss of data. So I do not believe that the new auditors do not have or are not allowed the access to data.
ii) Anybody aware of the business model of IT services companies knows that the accounts can be re-stated with the help of the clients who paid to Satyam for their products and services over the years.

There are many more points on which I differ but cannot clarify due to lack of time and patience. However, I agree with you that the fraud is one of the most serious in our history, the culprits should be punished what they deserve but not sure whether they will be due to the blunt criminal justice system in India, our politicians are most opportunistic in nature, there is a possibility of political involvement etc. But this, in no way discounts the professionalism Satyam employees have shown in two decades. Satyam employees are no different than employees of other IT companies. And by the way, Satyam’s new CEO is AS Murthy and not VS Murthy as repeatedly mentioned by you.