CVC inaugurated Online complaint lodging portal of ONGC

on 27th November 2012

VIGEYE VANI Monthly Newsletter of

Central Vigilance Commission

DECEMBER 2012

Volume – XXI

Shri Pradeep Kumar, Central Vigilance

Commissioner, inaugurated on-line

complaint lodging portal of ONGC for the

benefit of all stake holders, including public

at large to ensure transparency in all facets

of ONGC’s operations. On this occasion, he

also released a compendium of important

case studies in ONGC.

It was a historic day for ONGC as it was the

first time that such an initiative had taken

place in ONGC. Speaking on the occasion,

Shri Pradeep Kumar applauded these new

initiatives and said “ONGC has always been a

pioneer in adopting best Vigilance practices

and the industry has followed it”.

In his address Shri Sudhir Vasudeva, CMD

congratulated the vigilance department for

the idea of an e-portal for complaint lodging

and making compilation of important cases.

The CMD profusely thanked CVC for his visit

to ONGC and for agreeing to launch an e-

portal for lodging complaints and release of

booklet of vigilance cases.

From the Editor’s Desk

2

If the previous year endings in 2010 & 2011 had seen public

gaze focussed on the issue of corruption, December 2012 brought to fore

an unprecedented uprising against the curse of crime, and justifiably

so. Animal lust and human greed are facets of the same impulse.

It is time to introspect and query such unrestrained

gratification of our base instincts. Ruminating is but only a part, the

challenge lies in strategising the change. As all eyes are riveted towards

much needed reforms to secure the citizens of a civilised nation, we

must also seek procedures that expedite dispensation of justice.

It is easier to formulate penal provisions but very difficult to

apply the same what with endless delay on account of procedures. We

have enough provisions to preserve the innocence from false accusation

but hardly any procedure to guarantee that the actual perpetrators of

crime and corruption, serial offenders included, do not misuse the same

safeguards to thwart sincere endeavours to penalize them. The long

arm of law should be certain but swift too.

And it is on this note caution needs to be exercised by all

stakeholders engaged in ensuring Vigilance. Every single criminal or

corrupt going unpunished can inspire many others to seek similar

indulgence. Neither nations nor organizations can afford to forsake

swift deterrence. Glory does not cover those who shred and shed their

moral fabric.

Where do we go from here?

Quo Vadis?

Anil Sinha

Editor

3

The seminar at IICM, Ranchi held on 05.11.2012

Welcome of Chief Guest Shri R Sri

Kumar, Vigilance Commissioner,

CVC, New Delhi by Sri Gopal Singh,

CMD,CCL.

Lighting of lamp by the Chief

Guest Shri R Sri Kumar,

Vigilance Commissioner

Shri Manoj Kumar, CVO (CIL), Shri

Anil Singhal, Chief Technical

Examiner (CVC), Shri R Sri Kumar,

Vigilance Commissioner, Shri Gopal

Singh, CMD,CCL, Shri KP Varma,

President, Public Procurement Group,

New Delhi & Smt.Vismita Tej (IRS),

Chief Vigilance Officer, CCL on the

dias.

Shri R Sri Kumar, Vigilance Commissioner, emphasized the need for

transparency in public procurement. He was speaking at a seminar on 'Transparency

in Public Procurement' organized by Central Coalfields Limited (CCL), as part of

vigilance awareness week, at Indian Institute of Coal Mines (IICM) in Kanke.

Shri R. Sri Kumar, in his deliberation, highlighted the importance of

avoiding wasteful expenditure as public procurement involved huge amount of public

money. "We have to justify the price of material in a democracy. We have to prove

our consciousness as the volume of public procurement is large," said Shri Kumar.

4

Combating Corruption through Ethical Vision and Ethical Quotient

Corruption in developing countries has become one of the major problems in

the post cold war era. Corruption in developing economies arise due to limited provision of

government service, which public servants want to ration and allocate at their whims and

fancies leading to preferential treatment and corruption.

The corruption in any organization depends on three factors i.e. behavioural,

organizational and political or environmental. The political factors are normally beyond the

control of organizations and hence only the behavioural and organizational issues can be

looked into by an organization for mitigating corruption within. One of the theoretical

constructs which can explain the inter play of the behavioural and organizational factors

affecting the corruption level in organizations is the following :-

C = (G-E)+(O-P)

In this equation, C represents Corruption level, G represents

individual/employee greed, E represents level of ethics in individual/employee, O

represents opportunity for corruption and P represents probability for getting caught. It

can be seen that (G-E) represents the behavioural factors and (O-P) represents the

organizational factors. Therefore, for mitigating corruption, there is a need to control

behavioural factors in such a fashion that the greed level of employee is minimum and the

level of ethics can be the maximum. Some of the measures which can be taken in this

regard are creating ‘Ethical Vision’ of organization and assessing ‘Ethical Quotient’ of

prospective employees.

‘Ethical Vision’ can be conceptualized as the state of ethical standards an organization

should aspire to achieve while dealing with all its stakeholders whether internal or

external. ‘Ethical Vision’ of organization is as important as the ‘Vision’ of organization and

has to be developed on the basis of shared visions of the employee, managers and the

stakeholders whom the organization intend to serve. So the process of developing ethical

vision is little bit different than the ‘Vision’ the organization as it also involves outside

stakeholders. Organizations should take initiatives in formulating the ‘ethical vision’ of the

organization following a due process of consultations and by building a consensus among

the stakeholders. Ethical Vision’ will create a moral obligation on the employees and

managers and motivate them for ethical performance.

For ensuring that only the person of right aptitude joins an organization, it is

important that ‘Ethical Quotient’ of the candidate should to be checked during

Appointment/recruitment process and the HR managers, who control the selection

procedures for the human capital, have added responsibility in this regard. Here ‘ethical

quotient’ signifies the state of the ethical constructs or the personal ethics of the employee.

Creating the correct fit between the job and candidate by judging the ‘ethical quotient’

during the selection procedure is the challenge which HR managers face. Secondly,

organizations have symbiotic and synergistic relations with its employees and this

relationship has to be built over a period of time. Moreover, existence of information

asymmetry regarding the ‘ethical angularities’ of employee is detrimental to the

organizational health, and more so, if these angularities concerns corrupt practices. In this

scenario, it is suggested that the selection process should include detailed behavioral

analysis for checking ‘ethical quotient’.

****The views expressed by the author are personal

*******************

Prabhat Kumar, Director, CVC

5

Bringing 360 degree transparency in public procurement

Himansu Badoni, CVO/THDCIL

At present Public Procurement systems being used by CPSUs & other

central government departments are transparent only to the extent that they bring

transparency in some acts of government agency (only up to bidding stage) but do

not bring any transparency about acts of vendors. Transparency needs to be

promoted in all spheres from conception stage of work till final closure stage.

Hence there is a need for 360 degree transparency in public procurement. By

enforcing conditions of “one account for one work” through bid documents

especially for major contracts 360 degree transparency can be created.

Maintenance of one account for one contract would be beneficial for

progress of project as it would give idea of financial strength of contractor at

various stages of project development and can be a tool to control contractor’s

strategy to use cash flow received from contract for progress of that particular

project only. This will also expose the full or partial validity of contractor’s claims

which he usually makes in cases of disputes; bring reasonableness to rates of extra

items & will lead to similar other issues related to financial implications. Such

measures will also help in setting up benchmarks for cost estimates of future

works based on realistic data.

In order to curb tax evasions, ensuring authentic purchase with

payments of all legitimate taxes/duties etc by contractor are must. If contract

agreement provides for “one account for one work concept”, it will lead to

transparent functioning in all related areas. As government still remains the major

player spending money, such measures will automatically boost tax collections at

all levels. Further systems are required to be built to ensure payments to labour,

workers etc through their bank accounts to ensure proper compliance of minimum

wages act as part of social responsibility.

There is likelihood of increase in rates initially & resistance from

vendors for such type of total transparency, if such measures are adopted by

modifying contract conditions. For practically implementing such a system suitable

modifications in future tender conditions/ contract agreements will have to be

made to have systems in place for auditing of contractors work by corporation

along with provisions of all transactions for particular contract agreement through

one account only. Provisions for auditing of accounts of work of contractor by

corporation for major works will ensure availability of authentic vouchers for

purchase of material & disclosure of the same on demand, payments of requisite

taxes/duties etc at all levels.

Provisions for maintenance of separate accounts (something similar or

on pattern of “Escrow account”) for each contract agreement will help in bringing

360 degree transparency in public procurement.

****The views expressed by the author are personal

*****************************

6

XI Lok Ayukta’s Conference (Role of Vigilance and Investigative Agencies)

Shri R.Sri Kumar, Vigilance

Commissioner while speaking at

Lok Ayukta’s conference mentioned

that investigating agencies are

working in isolation with no

coordination and are hamstrung by

lack of adequate resources.

He stressed on the need of multi-

jurisdictional team investigation to

professionalise the inquiry and

investigating agencies to get full

advantage of investigating skills.

He proposed that there should be a

resolve to set up a network that

facilitates working together and

sharing information and

intelligence responsibly. It could be

called the Indian Association of

Anti-Corruption Agencies.

He mentioned that Vigilance and

Investigating Agencies are working in

their own silos and rarely they join

hands together and fight corruption.

There is no certainty of getting

caught and punished for corruption

7

Whistle Blowing

Whistle Blowing is a kind of dissent channel. The term Whistle Blowing was

coined in 1970 by Ralph Nadar, a US civic activist. Whistle blowing is like the whistle of a

referee. A referee blows a whistle in a game whenever there is a foul committed by a player.

Similarly, whistle blowers try to raise a red flag, whenever the game of governance is not

played by the rules.

Governance often involves negotiations, compromises, deal making,

manipulation, deception and host of other issues with various stakeholders. In such

situations, there are occasions when government of the day takes a decision, which may be

contrary to the prudent principles and can offend sensibilities of conscientious civil

servants. Here one stand which can be taken is that if the elected officials/politicians, who

have the public mandate, have decided to act upon a particular thing, then who are the

civil servants, who do not enjoy similar mandate, to oppose them. In such situations the

civil servants face an ethical conflict whether to blow whistle or not.

The argument which can be given against it is that the public mandate is to

do right things in public interest and not in own interest. Having the public mandate and

working in personal/party interest will be abuse of power and stopping this abuse of power

by elected officials is one of the mandates of civil servants across the globe.

India, where Gandhi once roamed in flesh and blood, civil disobedience was

his lethal instrument. Blowing whistle for the right cause is also a form of civil

disobedience. Although, as against the ‘Gandhian Algebra’ of civil disobedience, which is

the classical model and where direct confrontation with government is displayed in full

public view, whistle blowing takes place in secrecy and a direct confrontation is avoided.

Public official is justified in blowing whistle when the public interest is in danger of being

seriously compromised, if the matter is not brought out in the public domain.

Whistle blowing can either be internal or external. In the case of internal whistle blowing,

the whistle blower reports the misconduct to their superior officials within the

organization. Therefore, for internal whistle blowing, there should be a robust reporting

mechanism and there should be complete confidentiality of the complainant’s identity. The

whistle blower should have a trust that there will be complete masking of his identity and

there will be appropriate resultant action.

When the whistle blower reports the misconduct to outsiders like lawyers,

media, state or federal law enforcement agencies or watch dogs, it is called external whistle

blowing. Whether the whistle blowing will be internal or external depends upon the

severity and nature of information regarding misconduct and the whistle blowing channels

available to the whistle blowers. Whistle blowers are facing enormous risks of retaliation,

loss of social reputation and persecution and many a times they become selfless martyrs

for public interest. Many whistle blowers have faced termination, suspension, demotion,

wage cuts, etc. and sometimes even lost their lives. There is a strong need to protect

whistle blowers by promulgating strong laws. Whistle blowing will only strengthen the

cause of anti-corruption in any country.

****The views expressed by the author are personal

*****************************

Prabhat Kumar, Director, CVC

8

CENTRAL VIGILANCE COMMISSION Satarkta Bhawan, Block-A, GPO Complex

INA, New Delhi-110023

Read the online copy of Vigeye Vani on the CVC Website

Visit us at : www.cvc.nic.in

www.cvc.gov.in

Truth never damages a cause that is just.

Corruption and hypocrisy ought not to be inevitable products of

democracy, as they undoubtedly are today.

In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.

Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.

-------Mahatma Gandhi

WORLD BANK DELEGATION IN CVC

Members of the Editorial Board:

Shri Prabhat Kumar, Director, CVC

Shri Surender Mohan, Director, CVC

Designed By :

Verendra Singh, DEO, CVC