Gandhi: Tax Scam “Is Tearing Me Apart”
This afternoon, Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi tucked his tail between his legs—as he has been doing often the past six weeks—and made his way down to the Anacostia Community Museum to address the members of the Anacostia Coordinating Council about the $40 million tax scandal.
The speech was notable because Gandhi’s been essentially tight-lipped about the scandal to the press since the story broke and because it represents part of his effort to save his job in the wake of the greatest municipal embezzlement scandal in the city’s history. Gandhi asked to address this group, and he showed up today with D.C. Treasurer Lasana Mack and spokesperson Karyn-Siobhan Robinson in front of a crowd several dozen strong.
Robinson says that Gandhi’s addressed “a number of community and business groups” since the scandal. This has been the first where press has been invited (and not by Gandhi).
“More than anything,” he began, “what I have to say is how deeply sorry I am for what happened in the tax department.”
From there began what was essentially a hour-long “my bad.” Some highlights:
- “We basically lost the confidence and the trust of the citizens.”
- “What was [achieved] over the past 10 years was lost in that day, in one day….I’m deeply disgusted about that.”
- “This has been a profound management failure.” (That’s an oldie, but a goodie.)
- “Now all of us are branded as inefficient, incompetent, and worst of all, cheats.”
- “The bottom line is that this scandalous, fraudulent thing has heppened, and it’s tearing me apart.”
- “We have been burned badly.”
- “The most honest answer is, we made a major mistake. We goofed.”
As far as his own job goes, Gandhi stuck to the line he gave the day the scandal broke: I’m here as long as you want me, and I want fix this mess. “As long as I have the confidence of the mayor and the council collectively, I stay in this job, he said. “I’m not going to fight for this job.”
Later Gandhi said, “It would be far easier to go home….It happened on my watch—I must fix it.” At another point, he said quitting “would be a dereliction of my responsibility to the city.”
Gandhi several times reminded the crowd of the sorry state of the District’s financial operations when he arrived a decade ago. He reminded folks that he’d fired 15 tax-office employees already and said it was “quite likely” that more firings were to come. Gandhi also talked up an internal audit committee he’d recently named to look at city fiscal operations and controls, whose members include Sheldon Cohen of investment firm Farr, Miller & Washington, retired Arthur Young & Co. auditor Donald H. Chapin, and Federal City Council CEO John Hill.
More than once Gandhi was asked exactly how widespread the scandal was, to which he replied he didn’t know: Federal investigators have seized all of those paper tax records, and he couldn’t get at them. (In fact, he said, city auditors have had to ask permission to inspect those records to complete this year’s report.)
Ward 6 muckamuck Charles Burger gave him the hardest questioning of the day, essentially asking why the firings stopped at the Office of Tax and Revenue and didn’t ascend into the executive suite. Gandhi managed to dodge the question.
In any case, the Gandhi PR strategy seems to be working: The meeting turned into a lovefest of sorts for Gandhi, with virtually everyone who spoke up expressing support for the CFO.
Longtime activist Eugene Kinlow spoke up for Gandhi, and after the CFO left (in a 15-passenger District van), former Councilmember and ACC Chair Arrington Dixon assessed Gandhi’s performance as “good, very good.”
Ward 8 Councilmember Marion S. Barry Jr., as he is wont to do, walked in just as Gandhi walked out, and proceeded to praise the CFO: “He has been a tremendous asset to the financial health of our city,” he told what was left of the crowd.
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December 19th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
Yes but his failure to detect what others under him were doing was a great assest to at least 8 other people.
It is time for Ghandi to go.
December 20th, 2007 at 11:17 pm
Despite reports that District of Columbia coffers are “flush” with revenue, the reality is that many public services are stretched and stressed for general operating expenses and hard cash. Beyond the headlines and behind the lines is the ugly truth of D.C.’s fiscal imbalances and stolen dollars.
Confidentially ask the teachers of our still faltering public schools, fire fighters still waiting for upgraded lifesaving equipment, police officers stretched to the brink with diminished street staff, and the everyday District citizen feeling that sense of dread over the weak socioeconomic safety net of our city-state. Stadiums, condos and construction cranes don’t disguise the lies we see on the streets.
Almost one year into the mayoral takeover of our public schools, the actual evidence of measurable improvements is skimpy at best. Parents are still effectively kept out of the real information and decision loop, though it’s done with smiles and distractions. Now, it comes to pass that the money needed for academic and structural improvements was “underestimated.” Nevertheless, many six-figure salaries have been doled out for dubious duties and invisible results.
D.C. firefighters and EMS personnel answer daily emergencies risking their own lives with substandard safety equipment, and numerous fire hydrants with questionable states of operation. Lives and property are at stake through finger pointing and excuses from D.C.’s Water and Sewer Authority. Money for long overdue maintenance, repair and upgrades seem to drown in the continuing politricks of shell game financing, panic management, and so-called “emergency legislation.”
All hands are on deck, but proportionately fewer hands are available to permanently drive down and destroy the District’s crime spikes. These spikes aren’t minor if you’re the victim. Random acts of violence on D.C . streets and Metro facilities are still in vogue. MPD officers are still expected to take a bullet while being insulted with a pathetic paycheck, ever-demanding work schedules, plus an elusive respectable 20-year retirement package. Some may take former chief Charles Ramsey’s recruitment offer as Philadelphia’s new top cop.
But wait! There’s more! While some so-called city leaders devise new phony fiscal schemes to find the money they said we had, dollars continue to fly out the doors of District agencies from corruption and the usual crackhead budgeting. The real questions about D.C.’s systemic corruption is what did or does District CFO Natwar Gandhi know, and when did he know it? Better still, why didn’t he know it? Does the “No Snitching” policy apply in D.C. government too?
Hopefully, federal investigators and prosecutors have embedded themselves deep enough into the District’s caldron of corruption to discover the high and low level perpetrators eligible for D.C.’s version of the “perp walk.” No doubt, certain ‘Who’s Who’ characters will try to make quiet deals behind news headlines. Fortunately, for investigators, there are many genuinely honest, competent, and overlooked District government employees. All they need is a truly safe sign that it’s “all good” to tell the true tale of our city.
Make the true guardians of our public resources and reputation an offer they can’t refuse. Provide full immunity, absolute personal and career safety, plus a reasonable small percentage of the public tax dollars saved or taken from the sticky hands of numerous corrupt D.C. bureaucrats. Altogether, this is a real savings of our hard-earned tax dollars and good longterm fiscal policy.
Dennis Moore, Chairperson,
District of Columbia Independents
for Citizen Control (DCICC)
http://www.DCIndependents.org
dennis@DCIndependents.org