An investigation by India’s Confluence Media, Sweden’s SVT and Germany’s ZDF has revealed that the Swedish truck and bus maker Scania paid bribes to win bus contracts in seven Indian states between 2013 and 2016, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
Among those who took bribes from Scania was an unnamed Indian minister.
ANI reported, quoting the investigation, that Scania delivered a luxury bus in November 2016 to a company with ties to union minister Nitin Gadkari’s sons. The minister’s office Wednesday called the allegations “malicious, fabricated and baseless”.
A Scania spokesperson told Reuters a 2017 investigation by the company, which is a part of the Volkswagen group, found “serious shortcomings” by employees, including senior management. “This misconduct included alleged bribery, bribery through business partners and misrepresentation,” he said, adding that the company had since stopped selling city buses in India and shuttered its manufacturing unit in the country.
Henrik Henriksson, CEO of Scania, said the company may have been a “bit naive” in its dealings in India. “We really wanted to make it in India but underestimated the risks,” he was quoted by Reuters as telling SVT.
According to the investigation, Scania also forfeited truck models by replacing chassis numbers and license plates to sell them to an Indian mining company as part of a $11.8 million deal.
As news of the bribery scandal came, Indian Twitter erupted with the hashtag “Scania Scam”. Activists, journalists and other users slammed the mainstream media for not covering the revelations.
Dilip Mandal, a former India Today editor, called out mainstream media houses, including his former employer, for keeping mum about the scam.
What sort of reporting is this? This is not foreign news. Scania paid bribe in India. A senior minister is involved. You are reporting as if everything happened in some foreign country. #Scania_Scam https://t.co/NSkdwnILxu
— Dilip Mandal (@Profdilipmandal) March 10, 2021
Sanjukta Basu, editorial consultant for Congress mouthpiece National Herald, and Ashok Swain, a researcher based in Sweden, also tweeted about the investigation. As did the Adivasi rights group Tribal Army.
Be it a truck company or fighter jet or social media giant or OTT platform obviously they are paying bribes / quid pro quos to India's bureaucracy and politicians. It's nothing new. Just that in Cong time these cases were reported by media, investigated by CBI/ED. #Scania_Scam
— Sanjukta Basu (@sanjukta) March 10, 2021
This is what a journalist in India should have done! https://t.co/SAwhex646J
— Ashok Swain (@ashoswai) March 10, 2021
Where is Indian media? #Scania_Scam
— Tribal Army (@TribalArmy) March 10, 2021
https://t.co/L6EisogqZp
Huge story in Sweden today: Scania's own probe says its folks gifted luxury bus for use at @nitin_gadkari's daughter's 2016 wedding. Gadkari tells @thewire_in the report is 'malicious, baseless'.
— Siddharth (@svaradarajan) March 10, 2021
But I imagine @narendramodi will want ED/CBI to examine? https://t.co/ZtgjSAxqj4 pic.twitter.com/uBJAGwp1FQ
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