James Lamont

September 18, 2002

Johannesburg: Acres International, the Canadian engineering consulting company, on Wednesday warned that its conviction for bribery by the Lesotho High Court could jeopardise international construction companies’ operations in the developing world.

The Lesotho High Court on Tuesday found Acres guilty on two counts of bribery involving C$680,000 (US$430,000, €440,000) to secure contracts in an $8bn project to supply water from Lesotho to South Africa. Acres will appeal the High Court verdict.

“This decision sets a dangerous precedent that, if allowed to stand, will greatly increase the risk to companies – consulting engineers, contractors, suppliers – who do business in developing countries,” the company said in a statement.

This year the High Court found Masupha Sole, the former chief executive of the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority, guilty of accepting bribes from international companies working on the World Bank financed water-transfer project.

The case threatens to embarrass other international construction and engineering companies. Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners of the UK, ABB, the Swiss-Swedish group, Impregilo of Italy, and Sogreah, Dumez and Cegelec of France potentially face similar charges, which they deny. Spie Batignolles is the next company to be taken through legal process. If found guilty, it could be barred from World Bank projects.

Acres said it was unaware that Zalisiwonga Bam, its now deceased local representative in Lesotho, who was also Canada’s honorary consul to the country, was making illegal payments to Mr Sole.

“Acres had no knowledge of these payments,” it said.