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(LUSAKATIMES) World Bank to hand over names of Zambian officials who received bribes over ZESCO

World Bank to hand over names of Zambian officials who received bribes over ZESCO deal in 2002
TIME PUBLISHED - Tuesday, March 27, 2012, 6:31 am

The world bank has said that it will soon hand over to the Zambian government details and names of senior government officials in the previous MMD government who received a bribe from Alstom Corporation of France.

The World Bank slapped a hefty 9.5 million dollars fine on the Alstom Corporation, a major French engineering company and blacklisted two of its subsidiaries, Alstom Hydro France and Alstom Network Schweiz AG (Switzerland), after it admitted to bribing a Senior Zambian government official.

Alstom admitted to an “improper payment” of 110 thousand euros to the official for “consultancy services” when the company submitted a bid to ZESCO to perform bank-funded rehabilitation work on hydropower systems at Victoria falls in Livingstone.

Alstom’s subsidiaries have been banned from the Bank’s call for tenders for a period of 3 years, and committed themselves to pay US$9.5 million to the institution.

The bribe was paid in 2002, just two years after France outlawed the payment of bribes to officials in ­foreign countries. ZESCO signed a 45-million dollar contract with Alstom Hydro France in April 2002.

The Tender was issued in 1999 and the project was completed in July 2008 at a cost of 51-million dollars. The world Bank declined to name the official who allegedly received the bribe, saying that disclosure could “jeopardise the security of witnesses”.

But during an interview with selected Zambian business journalists, World Bank Managing Director Sri Mulyani Indrawatti said the referral will be sent to the Zambian government explaining how the corruption happened and the people involved.

Ms. Indrawatti said that it will then be up to the Zambian Authorities to act against the official.

And SHERPA, a Paris-based, non-profit organization that aims to protect and defend the victims of economic crimes in developing countries, has welcomed the decision by the World Bank but called for the damage caused to Zambia by this corrupt deal to be fully compensated.

SHERPA further said that there was no reason for not including restitution payments in the case of Alstom in Zambia.

Labels: CORRUPTION, MMD, SRI MULYANI INDRAWATI, World Bank, ZESCO

posted by MrK @ 1:44 PM