No evidence of Swiss bank or offshore accounts of Goa mining industrialists
RBI says it has no information on any offshore accounts, allegedly held by three industrialists as per list ‘released’ by Washington NGO; This list doesn’t mention any Swiss bank account
PANJIM: There is no evidence in public domain of any of the three industrialists named by Goa Foundation Director Claude Alvares of having accounts in any Swiss bank or any offshore account.
Alvares, in a press conference on Thursday had alleged that Govindraj Dempo, Ambar Timblo and a third industrialist, who the Herald incorrectly mentioned as Srinivas Dempo. (The Herald clarifies that Srinivas Dempo’s name was not mentioned and deeply regrets the mention of the same), have accounts in offshore accounts, as reported in the media, following a report on the website of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
Alvares was reported as having stated these industrialists have accounts in Swiss Banks.
He also that as per the information sought under Right to Information that these industrialists that Govindraj Dempo had four accounts and Ambar Timblo had two. “The Reserve Bank has not given permission to any of these people to open foreign bank accounts”, Claude Alvares said.
The perusal of the RTI reply given by the RBI, revealed the following. What was asked to RBI by Dr Alvares was “Please provide copies of approvals granted by the Reserve Bank of India from the period 2005 till the present date to persons from the state of Goa to open and maintain offshore accounts in International tax havens. As per media reports, the following persons residing in Goa opened offshore accounts in the year 2007 or earlier. (The question then specified off shore accounts maintained by them as reported in the media based on a report released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ)) The names of Govindraj Dempo, Ambar Timblo and Shivanand Salgaonkar were mentioned in Claude Alvares’ RTI query.
These names featured among 498 names of Indian offshore account-holders and reportedly contains details of their offshore accounts. The list was released globally by the Washington-based pro-transparency NGO, ICIJ.
Importantly, neither the Government of India and any of its agencies nor any of the banks have corroborated or confirmed the presence of any of these accounts thereafter.
Moreover, none of the accounts mentioned in the RTI query, or in the list released by ICIJ were Swiss Bank accounts, but referred to accounts in British Virgin Islands and Singapore.
The RBI’s reply with respect to all three names identical “Foreign Exchange Department Reserve Bank of India have no information in the matter”.
Alvares, in a statement issued on Friday said, “This is in connection with your news report today on my press conference yesterday on mining and the recovery of illegal mining incomes. I had mentioned three names which had been circulated worldwide by an international team of investigative journalists. However, I did not mention the name of Srinivas Dempo at all. The names mentioned in the international report included Ambar Timblo, Shivanand Salgaocar and Govindraj Dempo”.
It is important to note that the URL of the report concerning the Goa businessmen ‘is no longer available”.
(Herald therefore is retracting those portions of the report of the press conference pertaining to allegations of Goan mining industrialists having Swiss bank accounts).
