Stung by CWG allegations, Swiss co advertises innocence
09 Mar 2011
Swiss Timing Co, which has gathered some of the mud being flung around in the wake of the Commonwealth Games scam, on Tuesday put out a full-page ad in major Indian newspapers denying any wrongdoing.
The Swiss firm, under investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation for alleged irregularities in a Rs109- crore contract to supply timing, scoring and result devices for the Delhi Commonwealth Games held in October last year, said its pricing was transparent.
It added that the CBI has not contacted the company so far.
''Swiss Timing denies all the allegations and rumours referring to any irregularities committed during the last Commonwealth Games in 2010 in Delhi,'' the ad said.
A CBI statement following the recent arrest of Lalit Bhanot and V K Verma, former officials of the games organising committee, said they had ''entered into a criminal conspiracy with a Switzerland-based company named Swiss Timing and facilitated contracts at exorbitant rates, thereby causing huge loss to the government''.
The two officials were charged with criminal conspiracy, cheating and corruption. They were arrested on 23 February by the CBI. They are now in judicial custody.
The Swiss Timing statement said that the ''tender procedure and the bidding procedure have been totally transparent and Swiss Timing at no time has tried to illegally influence the tender and bidding procedure''.
Tellingly, the Swiss company said its experts had to work under ''disastrous and chaotic conditions before, during and after the Games''.
''The difference between the price of the previous games in 2006 in Melbourne (where also the company offered the timekeeping service), which is frequently misquoted in the Indian media, and the price of the Delhi CWG was of course discussed during the tender procedure between the various committee expert groups and the departments of the OC,'' the advertisement said.
Listing its arguments under the headline 'Facts and figures', the company said that the ''scope of work in Delhi was much bigger than the one in Melbourne''.