Satyam can’t get its staff numbers right even now

Satyam Computer Services, the victim of a multi-billion dollar corporate accounting fraud of 2009, continues to have trouble keeping its numbers in order.

The company closed the last fiscal with 24,123 employees and in the first three months of the current fiscal, hired 2,172. That adds up to 26,295.

However, while announcing results for the quarter ended June 30 last week, Satyam said its total headcount is 31,438.
The gap of 5,143 is flummoxing.

While company officials were not available for a comment on Saturday, a senior functionary said the mismatch is primarily due to the reporting of consolidated and standalone numbers.

“The headcount that was reported in the annual report last fiscal was standalone. For the first quarter, a consolidated number was given,” this person said.

But when the profit & loss account was indicating consolidated expenditure on human resources, what’s the point in a standalone number in the annual report?

To complicate matters further, a corporate fact sheet issued at the end of March quarter gives an entirely different standalone number — 22,924.

Including support staff count of 2,433 and subsidiary employee headcount of 6,633, the consolidated number rises to 29,266 as on March 31, 2011, as per this fact sheet.

The number discrepancy is curious considering allegations of fake employee records during the regime of B Ramalinga Raju, the man who cooked Satyam’s books to the tune of over Rs7,100 crore. Apparently, as many as 10,000 fake employee accounts were used to divert the funds.

To be sure, those allegations continue to remain speculative and investigating agencies are yet to find any evidence for this.
Interestingly, Satyam also mentions in its annual report that it is not disclosing all relevant employee details as required under Indian regulations and that shareholders wanting those information may write to the company secretary.