Bringing back all the Money stashed away in foreign banks – a twist in the tale
OUR Editor Shailendra has written a two part article (the concluding part appears today in our CobWeb) on the tax havens and the money stashed away in unimaginable places. He mentions that Indians had about USD 1456 billion in Swiss banks in 2006. That is a whopping 72 lakh Crores – ten times India's Budget. And the figure must have doubled in the last few years. Is there any hope? He states, “No concerted efforts are indeed expected from our politicians as it is a Catch-22 situation for them - they are being urged to bring back their own money?”
More than twenty years ago Jeffrey Archer published a collection of his short stories, called, “A Twist in the Tale”, in which one of the stories was about a strict honest Finance Minister of Nigeria who was out to end corruption in his county. He goes on a mission to Switzerland to unearth bank accounts of his countrymen in Swiss banks. He goes to a Bank and meets the Chairman and asks for the details.
He cajoles, threatens, induces and uses all the tricks in the trade to persuade the Chairman to part with the details, but the Chairman is very firm.
He threatens that his Embassy in Geneva will be closed and he will throw out the Swiss ambassador from his country; he would hold a press conference and announce that the Bank is under investigation – but the Chairman did not respond.
Finally the Minister got up from his seat, took out a pistol and said, “I need those names and by now you must have realised that I will stop at nothing. If you don't give them immediately, I am going to blow your brains out. Do you understand?”
The Chairman was sweating but he gave no names. He was prepared to die rather than part with the names.
“Excellent,” said the Minister as removed the pistol from the Chairman's head and picked up his briefcase and opened it to the banker to show neatly packed rows of hundred dollar bills which the Chairman quickly estimated to be about 5 million dollars.
“Sir,” said the Minister, “How do I go about opening an account with your bank?”