Prague, March 6 (ČTK) — The Indian government will probably start purchasing the Czech Tatra lorries for its military again after having suspended a long-term contract on them over a corruption scandal connected with commissions for Tatra’s former Indian co-owner Ravinder Kumar Rishi, daily Právo writes today.
Rishi is being investigated in India on suspicion of involvement in an intermediary firm that was buying sets for assembling Tatra lorries at a low price and resold them to the BEML Indian state company with a lucrative margin. The final selling price was three times higher than the purchasing price, according to some sources, Právo writes.
Rishi, who then owned 40 percent of Tatra’s stock and was also a member of its supervisory board, was profiting a lot from the dubious transaction, Právo says.
The new owners, who bought Tatra in an auction last year after it had ended up in insolvency, want to prevent such disadvantageous deals.
“The price [for India] has not been set yet but the contract must be advantageous for Tatra as a business entity. In no case will it be possible that a mediator could … profit from it, while the company would suffer a loss like in the past,” Tatra spokesman Andrej Čírtek told Právo.
He said all documents for the contract with the Indian government had been prepared. They are yet to be signed by the [Indian] defense minister, he added.
Právo writes that Rishi is also suspected of bribery in connection with the contract on Tatras in India. The local authorities started investigating it two years ago and banned Rishi from traveling to the CzechRepublic not to influence witnesses.
Two weeks ago, the investigators questioned representatives of the BEML, which had paid commissions to Rishi for Tatra lorries at variance with Indian law, Právo says, referring to the Indian Express daily.
Právo writes that Czech police were also looking into the alleged siphoning off Tatra’s assets by the disadvantageous supplies to India, on the basis of a legal complaint filed by defense lawyer Václav Láska. They shelved the case last year, concluding that no crime had been committed.
However, Láska argues that policemen did not deal with the main argument of his complaint, that is the possible systemic siphoning off money from the lorry maker.
“The police investigators did not look for information in India at all and they questioned only the Tatra management,” Láska said.
The heart of the matter is that the Tatra sets were bought at a too low price in the Czech Republic and sold in India fro much more money, he pointed out.
Láska said he had filed a complaint against the police’s steps in the case some time ago. However, state attorney Dušan Táborský swept it from the table as unsubstantiated, Právo says.
It recalls that Táborský is also in charge of the case of the alleged corruption accompanying the purchase of Tatra lorries for the Czech military in which former defense minister Martin Barták and Tatra’s former U.S. director general Ronald Adams are being tried by a Czech court and some former Tatra managers are witnesses.
The trial is to continue in mid-March by the questioning of Tatra’s former U.S. branch manager Duncan Sellars and William Cabaniss, former U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic and a member of Tatra’s supervisory board, Právo adds.
Read more: http://www.praguepost.com/economy/37613-tatra-trucks-to-return-to-indian-market#ixzz2vDKqk6E2
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