Natwar Singh slips on Oil

It was last year in October that the Paul Volker, the former Federal Reserve Chairman released his report on the Iraqi Oil for Food programme. The report mentioned Natwar Singh, the Congress Party, and Bhim Singh as “non-contractual beneficiaries”. The Iraqis had bribed political parties and people in position to influence their opinion.

When the report came out Natwar Singh immediately called it baseless. After that, just to prove that he genuinely had lost his marbles, he suggested that Paul Volker had political designs and was targeting opponents of the war. He also wanted to know why an American was appointed to investigate and not a person from a developing country. The Communists who are always in the race to show they are the benchmark when it comes to stupid statements contributed the gem that all this was due to the liberalization of the economy. Natwar Singh, then went so far, like George Galloway to suggest that he has no idea how a barrel of oil looks like.

It did not matter to these people that Table III in the report listed Americans, British, Italian and Spanish nationals (all from countries who made up the Coalition forces)  accused of similar crime. Since we don’t trust Americans, a Committe was appointed to investigate the matter. Now the Justice Pathak Committee has found Natwar Singh and his son Jagat Singh guilty.

Andaleeb Sehgal, a friend of Jagat Singh, and Aditya Khanna, a relative of Natwar Singh, are understood to have received financial payoffs in the deal by getting oil coupons based on the letters of recommendation given by Natwar Singh.

The authority has found that Natwar and his son had misused their position in helping Sehgal and Khanna bag three oil contracts from the UN sanctioned Saddam regime.

Sehgal and Khanna, in turn, passed the contracts on to Swiss oil company Masefield AG which drew the oil and paid them a commission, the report says, adding that on a cut of five cents a barrel, Sehgal and Khanna received a total commission of $1,46,000, which they divided between themselves in a ratio of 4:1. [Natwar Singh, son indicted in oil-for-food scam

Now we know that Natwar Singh was not targeted due to his anti-war stance, but because he was involved in bribery. His anti-war stance came not from any ideology, but due to good payoffs and he was just acting like a good sepoy for Saddam Hussein.

The report has exonerated the Congress Party which was listed as one of the beneficiaries, but since Natwar Singh was a loyal foot soldier of the party, doesn’t the party bear responsibility for this man’s actions? Both Sehgal and Khanna had used the  party name and Natwar Singh misusing his position had written several letters to the Iraqi Oil Minister to swing contracts in favor of his son. Now the focus will be on Natwar, since he has been chosen to drink hemlock for the party and in this cacophony the party will escape the scam.