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WELL, this is something that happened about three months ago, when there was a "maha kumbh" going on in the city attracting a record number of accountants to a mid-December conference.

There he was, a senior professional and policy-maker, and I was mouthing the usual `hello, how-are-you' before asking him what I thought was a routine question. "What are you doing in response to the Enron problem?" It was like asking one "Isn't it too hot today?".

I would have been satisfied even with something like "Yeah, we are looking at it. You see, there are a lot of related issues and soon we will be coming out with our views." No different from the blanks that the Delhi Police offered at a recent press meet explaining how they are handling the Natasha case. But that's not what happened.

"Enron, what happened?" he asked. More than a fortnight had passed by then, since the giant had been reduced to a corporate caricature.

A company with about $140 billion in revenues in the first nine months (that was, more than seven times that reported by Microsoft) — was melting down, wiping shareholder value by $60 billion and probes were hinting at fraud or misrepresentation of the accounts.

Ms Lynn Turner, SEC's former chief accountant, had decried the PR effort of the Big 5 in the wake of the fiasco as a `spin': "They are under a nuclear attack... nobody trusts their numbers anymore."

When I explained to the top-man what I was talking about, he called in his colleague — a representative of the Big 5 and, more importantly, a member of the ASB — asking him Ennada solraan? (What's he saying?)

"There was a devolvement after the balance-sheet date, blah-blah," he said, implying that it was too trivial to be brought before the boss.

And I searched for a noose to...

hindubusinessline@hotmail.com

D. Murali

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