Satyam- A Shocker!!

The other day as I entered my home , my Mom was on her feet staring at the television set. I reckoned it was the "Grand Finale" of some music show. I was wrong! She said Ramalinga Raju, Founder and Chairman of Satyam resigned admitting fraud and the next moment I was also starring at the television set. I had no comments to make but was absolutely shocked at the horrifying magnitude of the fraud that was involved. Can this actually happen? Is this some kind of a practical joke? Or may be the whole world was being Punk'd and probably we'll get to see Ashton Kutcher!! (sorry that was a little over the line...! )

By writing the letter and very plainly mentioning that it was all his fault and that none is to be blamed for, what was Raju trying to display? All I can see is another big lie. Such horrendous stuff cannot be single handed and he cannot be blinding the eyes of the public and more importantly the investors, the employees and all those who trusted in him and the company. Nevertheless there is a human side of him that he atleast admitted the whole fraud and took up responsibility for his act. But does that help? Such corporate crimes are like eye openers to the governance bodies and need to remind them that they have to prudently circumspect all the other companies who are sailing on the same boat yet have managed to be under the cover so far. I mean atleast there is a chance that one of these many big shots in the corporate world are playing it safe and pulling it off just like Raju managed for nearly 10 years. I heard on TV it was 10 years and I quote from his letter "The gap in the balance sheet has arisen purely on account of inflated profits over several years (limited only to Satyam standalone, books of subsidiaries reflecting true performance). What started as a marginal gap between actual operating profit and the one reflected in the books of accounts continued to grow over the years."

Whatever might be the laws of the land to punish Raju, whatever be the assurances given by the Interim CEO, whatever steps are taken to bridge the gap, I am more than certain that the damage is irreparable. Things are never going to be the same for Satyam. Many corporates, banks and agencies all over the world have rebuked this shameful act. Finally there are few questions that remain flummoxing to me:

• Why did he want to own Maytas when he knew he was already in a mess? Was it personal or motivated by the interest of the company?
• Was not 10 years if I am correct, too long a time for a person of his stature to realize that he was playing around with nearly 53,000 lives?
• He mentions that he was making efforts to fill the gap. What were those efforts? Is it not that making a lie of Rs7000 crores causes every effort to be meaningless?
• Satyam has been kicked out of the World bank and other indexes so what damage control steps as mentioned by the Interim CEO, Ram will bring them to their past glory?
• Will the company actual emerge stronger from this crisis and reinforce the faith of those broken?
• Last but not the least if Raju was courageous enough to write a letter and take the blame why is he sneaking into hotels or not answering calls? Why can't he make himself public?

All we can do is WaW!! (Wait and Watch!)