World Bank, Wipro, Satyam - how all this issue started suddenly?

Things are getting worse for Indian IT industry with blows from Economic crisis, World bank ban on Satyam, Satyam's fraud and back to World bank ban on Wipro, Megasoft and other mid size companies. Though, the IT industry isolated Satyam as one such incident, the news on Wipro's ban made the things quiet difficult. More than the ban, which is too trivial for wipro's revenue, the timing of the news is too bad for the industry.

Also, there is quiet a misconception among the people that World Bank(WB) has just banned the wipro, which is not true. Wipro was barred from the contracts inJune 2007, but the policy of world bank not to disclose information about any investigation inside world bank prevented it from reporting and this applies to the responsible company (Wipro). Now, it has changed its policy to report such incidents and so is the today's official announcement(see the actual mail) of the ban on Satyam, Wipro, Megasoft etc. But why did world bank changed its policy all of a sudden? This dates back to corruptions involved in world bank at various stages, which was reported in 2006 that around 20% percent of the loans given by WB ioves corrupt practices. The report said that, WB doesn't have good policy to reward staffs who reports corrupt practices in the bank but instead often punished them! The report adds that, after a corruption allegation of
$600, it took six years for the bank to start official investigation. It concluded that, WB need a reform program to address it's 'Failure of accountability'.

Later, various news kept floating on the corrupt practices in world bank, until when Fox news reported the biggest news that World Bank computers were repeatedly attacked by outsiders to retrieve sensitive data. It also added that these attacks were carried out for months. This news really alarmed the world, as many countries' sensitive monetary data resides in world bank. Later Fox also reported that an employee of the Indian IT company Satyam had a spyware installed in his computer which paved the way for the attackers. The allegation can be so easy that, Satyam had a dominating presence in the IT division of world Bank. So, according to FOX, only after its revelation on WB, the whistle blowing organization - GAP( the org which reported in 2006 about corrupt practices in WB) questioned World Bank about the data theft and bribing of the top official. At the investigation, the WB official revealed about the ban on Satyam, which was reportedly involved in bribery & spyware installations. Later, GAP-the whistle blower organization revealed Satyam's involvement in its website. GAP's announcement spread around over the past two months, which means World Bank's policy of not reporting investigations was overridden. This made them to change the policy and the result is the today's announcement. So is the revelation about Wipro. Wipro said that it provided shares to the WB staffs under its SEC approved program.

Also Read: Now, Is China a threat to Indian IT industry?

Here's some interesting news about Mohamed Muhsin who was said to be bribed by Satyam: When the investigation on him started back in 2006 on his involvement in Satyam, this is what the bank official had to say about him: "He was a very competent guy" and "He really turned around the IT [information technology] operation. It was a mess." As I had mentioned earlier, it was Satyam which was in total control of world Bank's IT operation.

Tags: wipro, wipro world bank, satyam world bank, mohamed muhsin, world bank corruption