Satyam fraud: Controversy over staff on the rolls

Hyderabad: Does Satyam Computer Services really have 53,000 employees on its payrolls?

The question kept raging even after 15 days of the former Chairman, B. Ramalinga Raju’s admissions of inflation of figures and fudging of financials of the company.

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By the response of the former interim CEO, Ram Mynampati, at the first media conference, around 2,000 staff had quit after September 30, 2008. He also admitted that there were no fresh recruits after.

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Interestingly, the company had issued ‘Pink Slips’ to a couple of hundred employees and also sacked scores on allegations of fudging travel bills in the last couple of months.

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According to Satyam officials, there are around 4,000 employees on contract, while the rest were on permanent rolls. Also there has been a steady flow of resignations at the entry level among the staff. Effectively, the permanent staff would be around 47,000.

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Post-December 16 events, several staff have also been quitting the company. More than 100 had in fact, moved out in the first week of January.

The company’s standard response has been its inability to provide the exact number of associates on the rolls attributing it to the process of restatement of the factual positions in the company. “As of now, the number is 53,000 but we will be able to give the exact figure only after completion of the audit,” said T. Hari, Head of Communication and Marketing.

There is an argument that the staff numbers were also inflated to justify the growth story of the company. Raju himself admitted that several aspects of the company were inflated to increase valuation and ward off a takeover.