Press Release, World Bank

July 23, 2004
The World Bank in its press release announcing a three-year ban on new Bank contracts for Acres International, said its sanctions committee had considered a number of mitigating factors in its ruling. Acres had already been ordered to pay a criminal fine by the courts and the relevant persons involved in the project for which Acres was convicted of corruption no longer hold positions of responsibility in the company. The World Bank’s Sanctions Committee found that Acres had engaged in corrupt activities for the purpose of influencing the decision-making of the then chief executive of the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA) and that this activity had violated the Bank’s procurement standards. In 1987 and 1991, Acres received significant contracts on the Lesotho Highlands Water Project to provide technical assistance to the LHDA, the second for just under $17 million. The Government of Lesotho announced criminal indictments in connection with alleged corruption in the project in July 1999. The World Bank’s procurement guidelines and listings of its reprimands and debarments can be viewed here.
Read the World Bank’s statement to the press here.