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80 MEDIA POLICY AND GLOBALIZATION
Table 3.4 Corruption index: privatization and telecommunications
corruption
Date Country Scandal
May 1996 India India Federal police discover US$1.3 million
in cash and a stash of jewellery during
raids on two homes owned by Sukh Ram,
former telecommunication minister under
Rao. Diaries obtained during the raids
indicate that Ram had undeclared assets
of US$8.5 million. Ram, who until the
recent elections supervised US$25 billion
worth of tender offers for the privatization
of the Indian telephone system, stands
accused of accepting bribes from a
company, and remains a fugitive until his
arrest in September. The charges are later
dropped.
November 1998 Brazil Veja and several other newsmagazines
release taped conversations of high-level
government officials discussing how to
influence bidding in the privatization of
Telebrás, the national phone company. The
tapes include Luiz Carlos Mendonça de
Barros, the minister of communications,
and André Lara Resende, president of the
National Development Bank (BNDES –
Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento
Econômico e Social), discussing how to
convince the Telemar investment group to
underbid, and thus likely lose the auction,
for Tele Norte Leste, one of the sixteen
companies formed during the privatization
of Telebrás. Although not charged with any
illegality, both men resign by the end of the
month, as do BNDES Vice President, José
Pio Borges, and Foreign Trade Secretary,
José Roberto Mendonça de Barros.
July 2000 Kenya KACA charges the minister for water
development, Kipng’eno arap Ng’eny, with
fraud and abuse of authority for actions
when he was head of the now-defunct
Kenya Posts and Telecommunication
Corporation in 1993. KACA accuses
Ng’eny of defrauding the
telecommunication organization of 186
million shillings (US$2.4 million).