BJP wants check on rating agencies

Expressing concern over lack of accountability of rating agencies, the BJP today sought options from experts to control these agencies.

Former finance minister and leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Jaswant Singh, slamming rating agencies for wrong predictions, said, “These agencies got it all wrong. Iceland was given a rating of AA while India’s economy was given a BBB rating. Look at what happened to Iceland. But India is still stable. Earlier, East Asian countries were given better ratings than India but they too collapsed a few years ago.”

As Finance Minister P Chidambaram listened patiently, Singh asked why these agencies were allowed to get away. “These agencies pretend to know everything. But certainly they can’t know better than the government. In the case of banks, the ratings are even worse. Most institutions which were given very high ratings have tumbled.” while Singh sought a remedy from the economists present in the House, he also asked the government to explain how it would manage the $6 billion required to be borrowed for infrastructure development in the next few years in view of the current global crisis.