Wednesday, Jul 10, 2002
Wednesday, Jul 10, 2002 |
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By Sridhar Krishnaswami
From Wall Street in New York, Mr. Bush took the corporate challenge head on knowing well that investor confidence was affecting economic recovery and, at the same time, bringing about political damage to the Republicans and the White House in a Congressional election year. "We will use the full weight of the law to expose and root out corruption,'' Mr. Bush said and gave a call to the U.S. Sentencing Commission to recommend longer prison terms for corporate executives guilty of fraud. He announced a new task force that would pursue and prosecute corporate criminal activity. The task force would be headed by the Deputy Attorney-General and include personnel from the Justice Department. Mr. Bush likened the task force to a "financial crimes SWAT team overseeing the investigation of corporate abusers and bringing them into account''. The President's remarks in New York has to be seen in the context of a wave of corporate scandals shaking America in the last several months, the last being the revelation of Worldcom that it improperly accounted some $ 4 billion in its books. The Democrats have jumped on to an issue, which has tremendous potential for the Congressional elections in November, and are urging the White House to come down heavily on business houses and their chief executive officers. "The business pages of American newspapers should not read like a scandal sheet. I am calling for a new ethic of personal responsibility in the business community — an ethic that will increase investor confidence, make employees proud of their companies and regain the trust of the American people,'' Mr. Bush remarked on Wall Street. "More scandals are hiding in corporate America. We must find and expose them now so we can begin rebuilding the confidence of our people and the momentum of our markets''. He called for measures that would double prison term for certain corporate crimes besides criminalising certain actions such as shredding of documents. He also unveiled a ten-point plan that would increase the powers of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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