Vigilance raid at state-owned KSFE leaves many ‘red faced’
While the Pinarayi Vijayan government has been blaming various central agencies for the ongoing probes in several cases, the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) on Friday came knocking at the doors of 30 branches of the state-owned Kerala State Financial Enterprises (KSFE).
At the end of the day many including Finance Minister Thomas Issac and the chairman of KSFE were up in arms.
The KSFE is incorporated as a miscellaneous non-banking financial company and is fully owned by the government of Kerala. Its turnover is in excess of Rs400bn. Its most popular product is the ‘chit fund’ business.
The finance minister went hammer and tongs at the VACB and termed its actions as sheer ‘madness’.
The opposition Congress and the BJP were quick to latch on to the issue.
Phileepose Thomas, chairman of the KSFE and a former Congress leader who quit the party after being denied a seat and later joined the CPI-M, said the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau had failed to comply with rules and he was neither informed of the raid before or after it took place.
Issac was also peeved as he, despite the KSFE being directly under his ministry, had no clue about the raid.
This issue surfaced at the weekly party meeting of the CPIM party bosses, including Vijayan.
Here too no one had a clue about what was happening in the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau raids, forcing the newlyappointed party state secretary A Vijayaraghavan to say it will be probed.
However, yesterday it emerged that senior secretary Sanjay Kaul knew about the raid and it was carried out after allegations surfaced that things were not hunky dory at the Kerala State Financial Enterprises.
The raid was preceded by a secret inspection and after ascertaining that things were not that clean at the KSFE, the VACB units was asked to conduct a raid on at least one KSFE branch.
But on Friday 30 branches were raided.
At the end of the raids, it emerged that there were lapses in the way things were being run at the Kerala State Financial Enterprises.
Kaul is now expected to hand over the raid report to Vijayan, under whom the VACB functions.
Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala said it’s strange and surprising that Issac and the CPI-M are up in arms over the raid. “Is the Vigilance and AntiCorruption Bureau only needed to probe cases against the opposition.
“KSFE is a financial institution and is a reputed one with credibility and it should be the responsibility of the government to probe if there is anything wrong at KSFE and it should be done immediately,” Chennithala told the media yesterday.
Issac is already under fire from the opposition for his alleged leak of a Comptroller and Auditor General of India report, while the chief minister is yet to comment on this issue.
Since Vijayan and Issac are not on the same page on many issues, it would be Vijayaraghavan who will have to answer a few unpleasant questions which the opposition parties and the media will be raising.
“KSFE is a financial institution and is a reputed one with credibility and it should be the responsibility of the government to probe if there is anything wrong at KSFE and it should be done immediately”