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 The World Bank faces pressure over dam coruuption
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World Bank to face fresh pressure to stamp out graft
Financial Times, 21 July 2004
A South African lawyer who has successfully prosecuted several multinationals for bribery linked to a World Bank-funded water supply project in Lesotho is appearing today before the US foreign relations committee in Washington.
In a move likely to increase pressure on the World Bank to do more to stamp out graft, Senator Richard Lugar, the committee chairman, asked Guido Penzhorn to testify on the Lesotho Highlands water project at hearings probing corruption in a number of projects.
Mr Lugar wrote to James Wolfensohn, World Bank president, in April asking why none of the three multinationals found guilty of bribery on the Lesotho project had been blacklisted or reprimanded by the bank.
The three companies Mr Penzhorn prosecuted were found guilty of paying bribes to Masupha Sole, former chief executive of the authority responsible for the $8bn (€6.4bn, £4.3bn) project to build two dams and supply South Africa with water from Lesotho. Mr Sole is serving a 15-year prison sentence for corruption.
Lahmeyer International, the largest engineering consulting group in Germany, was convicted and fined R10.5m ($1.3m) in the Lesotho High Court. This was increased to R12m on appeal in April this year.
Schneider Electric, a French company, pleaded guilty to 16 counts of bribery in February and was fined R10m. Acres International, a Canadian engineering consultant, was found guilty of two counts of bribery, reduced to one on appeal last year, and fined R15m.
Impregilo, an Italian construction company which led the consortium building one of the dams, is under investigation. Sir Alexander Gibb & partners of the UK and ABB, the Swiss-Swedish group, may also face prosecution.
© Copyright The Financial Times Ltd
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