Bengaluru, Oct 21 (FN Agency) Even as the Congress party is going all guns blazing against Karnataka BJP government leveling corruption charges, the ruling party has continued with hiring the services of Boston Consulting Group (BCG), which is allegedly facing several corruption charges in some countries. Responding to a pertinent question parried by UNI in a press conference here on Thursday, Karnataka Industries Minister Murugesh Nirani made an allegorical statement on the issue. Asked why should the BJP government continue hiring the services of the “tainted” consulting company, instead of hiring an untainted firm, Nirani said, “One thing I want to make clear. What the cow eats is not important, but what it gives is very much important. The company is very good and we have hired them to make Global Investors Meet successfully. We are doing that. What we would gain looking at the company’s history.”
The government in September last had decided to pay fees of Rs 12 crore and GST to BCG India Private Limited, an MNC, for one more year for bringing investments to the state. The firm is acting as a knowledge partner to the government and working out strategies for attracting investments to Karnataka, both from global and domestic players. The Congress has made corruption an issue to corner the BJP government in the state leading up to the assembly election next year. After the PayCM campaign, Karnataka Congress launched Say CM campaign relating to corruption charges against the Basavaraj Bommai led government. The opposition party also has continued with its relentless 40 percent campaign against the Karnataka government. The ruling BJP leaders have been calling all these corruption charges baseless, that are not supported by evidence. The government is demanding the Congress to furnish evidence so that the investigation is conducted into the matter or approach Karnataka Lokayukta to find out the truth if it does not trust the government. To remind, the global consulting firm BCG has a record of corruption charges against them.
In the recent past, the company was implicated for helping Isabel dos Santos, daughter of the former president of Angola, who became a billionaire allegedly by plundering state coffers. Details were revealed in the Luanda Leaks, a trove of 715,000 confidential financial and business records, provided to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), through the Platform to Protect Whistle blowers in Africa, a Paris-based advocacy and legal group. Dos Santos is the eldest daughter of Jose Eduardo dos Santos, Angola’s former president who ruled the country from 1979 to 2017. On 30 June 2017, BCG was the target of a raid by Portuguese police after a local client became the subject of a corruption inquiry. After long-term BCG client Energias de Portugal’s CEO was named as a suspect in an ongoing bribery investigation, law enforcement agents searched the consultancy’s Lisbon office in June, international media had reported. Energias de Portugal (EDP) CEO Antonio Mexia was named as a suspect in a corruption investigation by Portugal’s public prosecutor, following a police search of the offices of EDP, grid operator REN, along with the local division of BCG.