A week may be a long time in politics. It’s an eternity in the life of a police investigation. In the Louis Berger bribery case, or the JICA case as they are being referred to, the month of August was an absolute storm with a series of questionings, four arrests and then two bails leaving only Churchill Alemao and former JICA project chief A M Wachasundar in jail. In an irony that only life can provide, Alemao is in the very jail in Colvale whose foundation stone he laid as PWD minister. But that’s just an aside. There could be an even bigger irony if this investigation which began as a gale force turns out to be a damp squib – just bluster, ending in a whimper.
The Goa government seems to be approaching this investigation, purely to establish the credentials of its Chief Minister in going after the corrupt. Unfortunately the battle against corruption gets the maximum hits and brownie points, when big politicians are arrested or scurry for anticipatory bail. It is seldom aimed at cleansing the system and the reason for that is pretty obvious. A full cleansing will take all of them – those who are ruling and those in the opposition. Laxmikant Parsekar would have achieved, what no other Goa Chief Minister has if he gets both Digambar Kamat and Churchill Alemao behind bars for a stretch of time. He has managed to get Alemao but Digambar Kamat is made of much more wily stuff. There is enough credible information that members of the legal fraternity along with a very influential member of the BJP have made the right moves to ensure that his anticipatory bail is not decided anytime soon. By segregating the maintainability of the Government’s appeal against the granting of Kamat’s anticipatory bail and the decision on the appeal there is possibility of the maintainability issue dragging to the Supreme Court, keeping Kamat out of jail for a long time.
CM Parsekar isn’t too happy with this and he blames a coterie for helping Kama, cutting across party lines. But all this goes to show that the issue has become completely localised. The government of Goa has no quarrel with the Louis Berger company or the conduct of the employees of Louis Berger India. Its attempt to get James McClung former head of its regional operations who has confessed to having paid bribes, is limited to getting confessions which can nail Kamat and Alemao. Unlike other states which are cutting off links with Louis Berger, causing a lot of alarm and panic in the ranks of the US based company, the “business” hasn’t quite stopped in Goa. LB’s interests in the Mopa airport consultancy as well as the JICA project for which bribes have been paid, continue to be protected by the Goa government and by all accounts, this arrangement will not be disturbed.
If this government needs to make a really credible impact on its war against corruption, then it needs to target more people in decision making positions in the JICA project. At the same time, if this is a theme which the government digs, then it must look at obvious cases of corruption in the PWD and the GIDC which are easily the biggest corruption hotspots. It is not really a matter of chance that the Chief Minister’s brother-in-law, an officer in the GIDC was caught red handed taking a bribe to allot a plot. He is free though.
The apparent slowdown of the Louis Berger investigations better be temporary. Or else this government will have to be closely watched and a conclusion drawn whether this was all about selective targeting or a genuine clean up job.
