World Bank to reveal vendor names at time of debarrment

Drawing flak from different quarters for delay in revealing its ban on Satyam Computer, the World Bank has said it will now make public its decision as soon as it decides to debar a vendor from doing business with it.

“Announcements will be made at the time of a finding that a vendor is debarred, or in other words, determined to be a non-responsible vendor,” a World Bank official said in an emailed statement from Washington.

The World Bank temporarily suspended Satyam Computer in February 2008 and, after a detailed probe into the matter, the Indian IT firm was debarred in September.

However, the ban on Satyam was publicly disclosed by World Bank only in December last year — leading to criticism of the international lender for keeping this information under wraps for several months. Satyam, where its founder Ramalinga Raju has admitted cooking up accounts for several past years, has been banned for eight years by the World Bank for providing “improper benefits” to the bank staff and for failing to maintain records relating to fees charged for sub-contractors.

The scam, came to light early this year, has been billed as the biggest ever corporate fraud in India.

With Satyam’s board having been superceded by the government-appointed directors, the World Bank has said that it could review the ban if the Indian IT firm takes necessary “corrective action”.

Satyam’s board has given a go-ahead to bring in new strategic investors in the company to ensure flow of necessary funds and managerial strength needed for its uninterrupted operations.

Regarding the possibility of relaxing the ban on the software exporter, the multilateral agency noted that Satyam has to show that it has again become a responsible vendor to do business with.

The World Bank’s guidelines for vendors have provisions for relaxing or scrapping bans on entities on fulfilling certain conditions including “(bona fide) change in ownership or management”.

In addition to Satyam, two other Indian entities — Wipro and Megasoft — have also been banned by the World Bank.