🚀 go-pugleaf

                                                Donnacona, December 1,
1996
        Dr. P. Morand, President
        Natural Sciences and
        Engineering Research Council
        200 Kent Street
        Ottawa, Ontario K1A 1H5
                        
                        Dear Dr. Morand:

I reproduce below the text of my letter of October 14, 1996:

"In my letter to you written in April of 1992, and later in  my  letter 
to 
Ms.Armour dated June 15, 1992, I have provided ample documentation 
proving 
fraud  and  extortion  perpetrated  by  Drs.  T.  Sankar,  S.  Sankar  
and 
M.N.S.Swamy. These charges were never investigated by  your  Council.  
You 
can not claim that the  Arthur's  Committee  did  its  job  properly.  
For 
example, in the question of authorship of my publications, they claimed 
to 
study four of my articles and concluded  that  I  used  these  articles 
to 
entrap poor professors, since all four (according to  the  Committee) 
were 
just a repetition of one of my articles previously published in  the 
USSR.  
What about the remaining over 30 publications ?    Were all of them just 
a 
repetition of that magic one article published in the USSR  ?   No 
serious 
person would believe this nonsense.  If  the  Arthur's  Committee  was 
not 
obliged to look into them, then it is the duty of your Council to do so.  

I reproduce below the text of my letter of December 15, 1994, to policeman
Couture, who was in charge of the "investigation" initiated by you.

        Here is some information  from  my  own  files.   Grant  # 
P-8007, 
        awarded to S. Sankar  (1980-1983)  and  entitled  "Development 
and 
        testing of  on-road  off-road  motorcycle  front  forks  and 
shock 
        absorbers".   Out of total award $230,025, the  amount  of 
208,395 
        was paid on "other salaries".   This usually refers to payments 
to 
        people outside university.   Now, who was paid, how  much  and 
for 
        what ?   All my  attempts  to  find  it  out  by  using  Access 
to 
        Information Act failed so far, because the  Commission  for 
Access 
        refuses to consider  my  complaint  and  force  the  University 
to 
        release the information.   I know that all  the  work,  related 
to 
        this and other grants, was performed by graduate students. 

        Similar  information  from  another  of  S.  Sankar's   grants:  
# 
        CRD-38948, "CAD of snowmobile suspension system frames".    Out 
of 
        $382,825, the amount of $273,654  was spent  on  "other 
salaries".   
        I wrote to Levi asking him if he verified  who  was  paid,  and 
he 
        never responded. 

        The same refers to  S.  Sankar's  contract  with  Transport 
Canada 
        entitled "Liquid Tanker Stability".   All the   work  was  done 
by 
        graduate students (Ranganathan and Popov), who  were  paid  by 
the  
        university, while significant money were paid to unrelated 
people.   
        Who are these people and why were they paid ? 

        Would you be kind enough to verify who  was  paid  from  these 
and 
        other grants and for what.   Please do not hesitate to  contact 
me 
        if you have need for any clarifications. 

I have never received any specific response from Mr.  Couture.   I 
believe 
that it is the duty of your Council to answer these questions. 

I have received a copy of a very strange report mandated by you  to 
verify 
the accuracy of the previously published report of Mr.  Levi.   I  call 
it 
strange because of the method used: RANDOM sampling.  Mr. Levi pointed 
out 
some specific abuses, so these specific cases  should  be  verified.  
When 
your "verificator" took RANDOM sample, these specific cases may  very 
well 
not be included in the sample.   There is no indication in the whole
report 
whether any of transgressions were  verified,  and  if  yes,  there  is 
no 
indication as to why Mr. Levi was wrong in his conclusions.   For 
example, 
T.S. Sankar was accused  of  spending  about  $8,000  for  a  trip  of 
his 
relative, and that this trip was not related to the grant  from  which 
the 
money were taken.  Was this allegation verified, and if yes, where Mr.
Levi 
made a mistake ?  This report was not signed by anyone.  Who was (were)
the 
investigator(s) ?   I understand the investigator(s) was (were) too
ashamed 
to sign the name(s). 

I should appreciate if you kindly send me another  copy  of  that 
unsigned 
report, and an additional information, namely, what was the mandate of 
the 
investigator(s), name(s), did they consider the specific cases  alleged 
by 
Mr. Levi, where exactly was Mr. Levi wrong in his conclusions and why. 

I enclose for your information the  document  (13  pages)  describing 
what 
REALLY happened at Concordia in  August  of  1992.   The  truth  was 
never 
reported by the media.  They are describing me as a madman who, without
any 
reason, killed four innocent people, who he never met before.   I  do 
hope 
that this document will convince you that you are now  funding  people 
who 
very skillfully premeditated those murders.    Just  ask  yourself  a 
very 
simple question: why were these people fired in 1994 ?   There was not
much 
in Mr. Levi's report to justify firing of tenured professors.    They 
were 
fired for murders, which they premeditated.    I  ask  you  once  again 
to 
investigate my allegations completely and in the  meantime  to  stop 
their 
funding." 

And here is the complete text of the "response" dated November 15, 1996
and 
signed by Ms. Armour: 
                "Dear Dr. Fabrikant:
I am writing in response to your letter of  October  14,  1996.  NSERC 
has 
reviewed the reports of the various investigations.  As I indicated  in 
my 
letter of August 15, 1995, NSERC also carried out its  own  review  of 
all 
relevant  NSERC  accounts.   We  now  consider  the  matter  closed. 
Yours 
sincerely,         (signed) Catherine Armour, Research Ethics Officer." 

Please compare the "response" to the text of my letter, and  you  will 
see 
that none of my questions was answered.   Even if you consider  the 
matter 
closed, it should mean only that you do not wish to investigate the 
matter 
further, but this does not give you  the  right  to  refuse  to  answer 
my 
questions about WHAT exactly has been done, HOW it has been done,  by 
WHO, 
and WHY, for example, it was done by a  random  sampling.   I  ask  you 
to 
return to my original letter and to answer all the questions. 

        Thank you in advance.  
                                     Yours Sincerely, 
                                                  
------------------------
                                                     Dr. V.I. Fabrikant  
                                                     prisoner #167932 D 


_______________________________________________________________________


                            DR. V.I. FABRIKANT                           
   
                            prisoner #167932 D                           
   
                  Donnacona jail, Donnacona, Quebec, G0A 1T0             
   
                                                                         
   
                                                Donnacona, January 15,
1997
    Dr. P. Morand, President
    Natural Sciences and
    Engineering Research Council
    200 Kent Street
    Ottawa, Ontario K1A 1H5
                                   Sir:

You might be interested to read the text below.  I  bring  to  your 
attention 
that my official request for access to information dated December 30,
1996 was 
still not acknowledged by your office.

                         Yours Sincerely,
                                        __________________
                                        Dr. V.I. Fabrikant
                                        prisoner #167932 D



___________________________________________________________________


WHITEWASH BY NSERC(NATURAL SCIENCES AND ENGINEERING RESEARCH COUNCIL)

In July of 1994, Concordia University has made public the results of 
forensic 
audit of its research accounts, made by accountant  Levi.   Three 
professors, 
named in the report Swamy, T.S.Sankar and S.Sankar were  given 
ultimatum:  to 
resign within 6 hours or be fired, and all resigned. A good  question  to
 ask 
here is: why three  honourable  scientists,  Fellows  of  various 
prestigious 
learned societies chose to resign?  The answer is obvious: there was much
more 
than was stated in the Levi's report to reproach to them. 

Following the report, NSERC has frozen their  accounts  and  asked 
police  to 
investigate whether criminal charges should be laid.  In  addition  NSERC
 has 
decided to review  their  accounts  at  Concordia  University,  and  a 
really 
astonishing review it was! 

First of all, they have chosen a random sampling method of review of 
accounts 
of M.N.S.Swamy, T.S.Sankar and S.Sankar.  Random sampling method is
applicable 
where you may assume that no violation took  place,  and  you  take  a 
random 
sampling just to check whether there is any reason  to  think  otherwise.
  In 
this case, certain grave violations were established by Levi's report,
and  to 
take a random sampling in this case  is  nothing  but  an  obvious 
whitewash.  
Indeed,  imagine  as  an  example  a  bank  teller,  who  made  thousands
  of 
transactions honestly, and in just one embezzled a  million  dollars.  
Assume 
now that this teller is accused by someone of  this  particular 
embezzlement, 
and  the  bank  administration  sends  a  commission  to  investigate.   
This 
commission arrives, takes a random sampling of the teller's transactions,
 all 
the transactions in the random sampling are honest,  commission  is 
satisfied 
and declares that no embezzlement took place!  You will  rightfully  say 
that 
this is absurd, and no bank would behave that way, and I agree,  but 
this  is 
exactly what happened at NSERC.  Here are the details. 

The complete text of NSERC report  is  given  in  Appendix  (except  for 
some 
meaningless tables).  Here is the first quote from the Report: 

     "It is important  to  note  that  while  NSERC  officials 
originally 
     planned to conduct a review of accounts for a period of twelve
years, 
     this review was limited to expenditures occurring  from  fiscal 
year 
     1988-89 through to 1993-94 as supporting documentation  for 
previous 
     years was no longer available for review." 

Wow, this is interesting: Levi has managed to do his review for  the 
past  13 
years!  If the information was available to Levi, how come it all of a 
sudden 
becomes "no longer available" just couple of months after Levi's review? 

Second quote:


     "In the Faculty of  Engineering  and  Computer  Science,  our 
review 
     included 70 accounts from which 695 transactions made from 1989-90
to 
     1993-94  inclusive  were  chosen  based   on   statistical  
sampling 
     techniques." 

Let us do some computations.  Levi estimated about 1,000 research
accounts  in 
the Faculty  of  Engineering  and  Computer  Science,  so  70  accounts 
taken 
constitute 7% of all accounts.  About 10 transactions on  average  were 
taken 
from each account for the duration of  5  years,  which  gives  on 
average  2 
transactions per account per year, which is less than 1% of all 
transactions, 
so I leave it to you to decide just how representative this sample was. 

Next quote:

     "In  the  Faculty  of   Engineering   and   Computer   Science,  
157 
     transactions, or 22% of the total number of transactions, were 
found 
     to have inadequate documentation  to  determine  whether  these 
were 
     eligible under NSERC rules.  These represent  a  total  of 
$238,710.  
     NSERC will be requesting further information from the  University 
to 
     determine whether these transactions are eligible. 

     Another 27 transactions, or 4% of  transactions,  were  found  to 
be 
     ineligible for NSERC funding on  the  information  available  to 
us. 
     These represent a total  of  $103,012.41  for  which  NSERC  will 
be 
     requesting a reimbursement from the University." 

Let us do some computations here.  Assume that the  sample  is 
representative 
for the whole population of accounts.   If  verification  of  7%  of 
accounts 
resulted in over $100,000 to be reimbursed to NSERC and over $200,000
probably 
to be reimbursed (in doubt), then similar verification of ALL accounts 
should 
result in in over $1.4 million to be reimbursed and $2.8 million 
probably  to 
be reimbursed, and this is on verification of two transactions per
account per 
year!  Can you imagine, how much money can be recovered, if  all 
transactions 
are checked on all accounts?  Why did not NSERC do it?  Because their 
purpose 
was not stopping criminal activity at Concordia, not  recovery  of 
taxpayer's 
money, but whitewash. 

One might think that NSERC review would first of all examine  Levi's 
findings 
and either confirm or dismiss them.  This is not what happened. The 
following 
accounts  of  M.N.S.Swamy   were   examined   by   Levi:   038-263,  
038-213, 
043-114/K15/D009, Q02, K55 and K48.  The  following  accounts  of 
M.N.S.Swamy 
were examined by NSERC:  N-063,  K48,  K55  and  N-305.   Only  two  of 
these 
accounts, namely, K48 and K55 seem to be common to both reviews, and of 
these 
two, NSERC has concluded that no NSERC money were transferred to account 
K55, 
so they could not care less whether there was any fraud perpetrated 
there  or 
not, they did not check a single transaction. 

Here are some findings of Levi.  On account 038-263
T.S.Sankar/M.N.S.Swamy: 

     "This account was used by Dr.T.S.Sankar to accumulate  $157,418 
from 
     various NSERC & FCAR accounts.  These charges to the  grant 
accounts 
     were camouflaged to appear proper  under  NSERC  rules  but  in 
fact 
     contravene the rules for use of NSERC funds". 

     "This account was under control of Dr.  T.S.Sankar  until  1986 
when 
     control  [was]  transferred  to   Dean   Swamy   upon  
Dr.T.S.Sankar 
     resignation as chair of Mechanical Engineering". 

NSERC did not bother to check this account.

I add here that Dr.T.S.Sankar has  resigned  in  1986  among  rumors 
that  he 
embezzled a lot of money from various accounts.  I was present and  heard
 his 
resignation speech: he was almost in tears, and he did not give  any 
sensible 
reason why he was resigning in the middle of the school year. 

Levi's finding on the account 038-213 - Swamy special account:

     "This account also violates NSERC rules  by  collecting  a  total 
of 
     $71,953 from various NSERC  accounts  to  'cover  the  cost  of 
Data 
     Processing Equipment'." 

NSERC did not bother to check this account either. 

Levi's finding on the account Q02 - Swamy special Dean's account:

     "This account and  the  next  account  K55  -  M.N.S.Swamy 
Mechanical 
     Engineering Dean's account - characterize the misuse of funds  by 
Dr. 
     Swamy." 

There is a confusion here: NSERC associates Q02 with  N-305,  and  they 
never 
clarify why their identification  is  different  from  that  of  Levi.  
NSERC 
refused to review this account. 

Levi's finding on the account K48 - M.N.S.Swamy CORE Facility:

     "This account was  used  by  Dr.Swamy  to  accumulate  $212,043 
from 
     various NSERC & FCAR accounts to be used to fund expenditures 
within 
     the Faculty in direct contravention of NSERC rules" 

NSERC did not find anything wrong with the account, but they do not 
refer  or 
argue with Levi's conclusion.  It is very easy to decide, who is right.  
Here 
is the Rule 190 which was contravened: "Grant funds must  NOT  be 
transferred 
from one research to another or to non-NSERC accounts." 

The sloppiness of NSERC review is obvious from the following  phrase  on 
page 
10: 

     "Prior to becoming Dean, Dr.Swamy had  himself  contributed  to 
this 
     account". 

Dr.Swamy has become Dean in the  seventies  and  has  been  Dean  ever 
since.  
Taking into consideration that NSERC review did not go back earlier than
1989, 
they have no way of knowing what happened prior to Dr.Swamy becoming
Dean.  In 
addition, Levi claims opposite: 

     "No contributions appear in either account (K48  or  Z24)  from 
Dean 
     Swamy, as outlined in the documentation we  examined  regarding 
this 
     arrangement." 

NSERC did not address this discrepancy.

Here is Levi's conclusion on the propriety of expense reports of 
M.N.S.Swamy, 
T.S.Sankar and S. Sankar: 

    "Our  examination  of  expense  reports  disclosed   occurrences   of 
     duplicate expense claims, claims for personal expenses camouflaged
to 
     appear like University business expenses and conflicting expenses
for 
     identical times and dates at different locations or cities." 

NSERC ignored this finding.

The following accounts of Dr. T.S. Sankar were reviewed by Levi: X58,
038-263, 
038-118, K56.  NSERC reviewed accounts N-065 and N-294, nothing in
common. 

Here is Levi's conclusion on account X58:

     "Our Investigation concludes that the account contains  invoices 
for 
     computer charges which are improper and only created as
documentation 
     to support and conceal an actual contribution towards the
acquisition 
     of equipment which is not permitted under contract budget. 

     "We further conclude that Dr.T.S.Sankar has violated  the 
provisions 
     of  CUFA  collective  agreement  as  they  relate  to  paid  
outside 
     consulting" 

This finding was ignored by NSERC.  Levi also missed the more important
point: 
he noticed only that  T.S.Sankar  was  paid  for  82  days,  while 
collective 
agreement allowed him to be paid for the maximum of 52  days  per  year; 
what 
Levi did not notice was the fact that T.S.Sankar did not spend  a  single
 day 
working on the project, and he could not even if he wanted to: the
project was 
in the field of fluid dynamics, in which T.S.Sankar has no knowledge. 
All the 
work was done by Dr. Popov, who  was  at  that  time  a  graduate 
student  of 
T.S.Sankar and he was not paid from the contract at all. 

Levi's findings on the account K56 - T.S.Sankar:

     "Our analysis of this  account  demonstrates  additional 
unsupported 
     charges  to  other  contract  accounts  for  computer  charges.   
In 
     addition, Dr. T.S. Sankar sold old equipment belonging  to 
Concordia 
     and deposited the proceeds into this account to be used  by  him, 
at 
     his discretion." 

Again, NSERC ignored this finding.

The following accounts of Dr.S.Sankar were reviewed by Levi: X69, L01, 
Liquid 
Tanker Stability Contract and the Development of  a  Vehicle  Dynamics 
Expert 
System Contract.  NSERC reviewed only one account  N-116,  again, 
nothing  in 
common. 

This is the typical finding made by Levi:

     "Dr.S.Sankar has used personnel paid in part by University 
operating 
     budget funds and grant funds  for  the  performance  of  an 
industry 
     contract for which most ($72,700) of the proceeds  were  directed 
by 
     him to his private company". 

What Levi did not understand though was the fact that Dr.S.Sankar did 
not  do 
any job in any of his contracts.  All the work was done by  graduate 
students 
paid by the University. 

NSERC review of S.Sankar's account  N-116  is  deliberately  misleading: 
they 
claim that "$358,746 or 95%  was spent on bursaries and salaries  to 
graduate 
students, postdoctoral fellows and  research  personnel  as  can  be 
seen  in 
Appendix C."  But if we look at the figures in Appendix C, we  find  out 
that 
only $72,682 was spent on graduate students and  postdoctoral  fellows, 
while 
the lion share $255,697 was spent on  "other  salaries",  which  in 
Concordia 
jargon does not mean  Concordia  research  personnel,  it  means  people 
from 
outside the University.  I have been trying for years to find  out  who 
these 
people were and why were  they  paid,  but  Concordia  University 
refuses  to 
release this information, claiming that the records  are  not  available.
  It 
looks like they were available to NSERC.  Let us read what they wrote: 

     "Of  15  salary  transactions  reviewed,   we   required  
additional 
     information  including  employee  status  and  affiliation   to  
the 
     grantee's research, for 3 transactions  to  ascertain  whether 
these 
     were eligible under NSERC rules. Based on the information provided
to 
     us, these transactions were also found to  be  eligible  under 
NSERC 
     rules". 

And here is an English translation of what they really wanted to say:
"Out  of 
15 salary transactions reviewed, we found payments to 3 individuals, who 
have 
nothing to do neither with Concordia University, nor with the subject  of
 the 
research; we know that they were paid kick-back money, or  Dr.Sankar 
paid  to 
himself through fictitious third persons, but we do not want  anyone  to 
know 
this, so we claim that everything is OK". 

This is what NSERC wrote on verification of T.S.Sankar's account N-065:

     "Of  12  salary  transactions  reviewed,  three  required 
additional 
     information  including  employee  status  and  affiliation   to  
the 
     grantee's research, to ascertain whether these  were  eligible 
under 
     NSERC rules.   Based  on  the  information  available  to  us, 
these 
     transactions were also found to be eligible under NSERC rules." 

And here is relevant quotation from  NSERC  review  of  M.N.S.Swamy's 
account 
N-063: 

     "Of  12  salary  transactions  reviewed,  three  required 
additional 
     information  including  employee  status  and  affiliation   to  
the 
     grantee's research, to ascertain whether these  were  eligible 
under 
     NSERC rules.   Based  on  the  information  available  to  us, 
these 
     transactions were also found to be eligible under NSERC rules." 

Clearly, the whole report  is  done  by  "cut-and-paste"  method.   Long 
live 
computers! 

The sloppiness of NSERC work is also illustrated by the quotation:

     "Our review of Dr.Sankar's internal account  N-116(B-34)  included 
a 
     total  of  37  transactions.   Of  these  transactions,  22(!)  
were 
     operating expenses and 15 were  salary  transactions.   Nine  of 
the 
     11(!) operating expenses were fully  documented  and  compliant 
with 
     NSERC rules.  We had to seek additional information on the 
remaining 
     2 transaction, to ascertain whether these were eligible  under 
NSERC 
     rules." 

They  could  not  even  make  their  arithmetics  right:  the   22  
operating 
transactions, chosen initially, all of a sudden were transformed into 11! 

And here is the most flagrant example of how NSERC did  not  want  to 
see  an 
obvious fraud.  I refer to their investigation of Steacie fellowship 
account.  
They write: 

     "In  1988-89,  a  two-year  Steacie  fellowship  in  the  amount  
of 
     168,097.75 was awarded to W.G.Habashi.  During this time, 
Dr.Habashi 
     was to be released from his administrative  and  teaching  duties 
to 
     devote all his time to research. 

     "The Steacie Fellowship account was  created  by  Concordia  for 
the 
     exclusive administration of this NSERC grant.  As Dean of the
Faculty 
     of Engineering and Computer  Science,  Dr.Swamy  was  the 
designated 
     administrator of this account." 

This account was supposed to be used to pay Dr.Habashi's salary. 
Instead, the 
University decided to pay his salary from its budget, and the money in
Steacie 
Fellowship account were used for various other expenses,  mainly 
purchase  of 
"minor equipment", and instead of two years, the account was in such  use
 for 
five years.  NSERC concluded that it was not a big deal.   Well,  let  us
 ask 
ourselves, WHY would the University go to such complications?  Would not
it be 
much more simple to use Fellowship grant to pay Dr.Habashi's salary and
to buy 
whatever they were  needed  from  operating  budget?   Of  course,  it 
would, 
provided that Dr.Swamy could legally buy he they wanted to from the 
operating 
budget.  So, the only logical conclusion here is: Dr.Swamy could  not 
legally 
buy what he wanted from the operating budget, but he  could  pay 
Dr.Habashi's 
salary from that budget.  Here we come to the crucial question:  what 
exactly 
did Dr.Swamy buy?  And it was not a small amount of money.  There is no
answer 
to this question, and it is obvious,  why:  whitewash  is  a  whitewash 
is  a 
whitewash! 

There was no signature  under  the  report,  and  it  is  understandable 
why: 
cover-up of fraud is a crime.