(February 5, 2009) According to recent Indian press reports, the country’s Central Bureau of Investigation has arraigned Claus Trendl, a senior vice president with Canada’s SNC-Lavalin, for the engineering giant’s role in a contract to overhaul three hydro-electric dams in the southwestern state of Kerala. It is alleged that irregularities occurred in the awarding of the contract and that Lavalin benefited from undue favour.
Probe International asks Canadian government to provide legal aid to Three Gorges dam victims
(February 13, 2008) Probe International is urging the Canadian government to set up a legal aid fund for the dam’s victims. Many of the people displaced by the dam were not given adequate compensation for their losses — others were even jailed or beaten for exposing corrupt officials.
World Bank continues Philippines loan freeze; officials talk back
(December 12, 2007) The World Bank has said it will not approve a $232 million loan to the Philippines until it is convinced anti-corruption measures have been put in place to protect the project the funds are intended for. The loan, due for approval on Dec. 13, was slated for a road building contract but was blocked by the Bank after the Chinese contractor was found to have been involved in bid rigging.
PRESS RELEASE: Belizeans seek court order forcing Canadian-owned power company to honour its environmental obligations
(July 11, 2007) A Canadian-owned power company could be forced to stop work on its third dam on Belize’s Macal River – underway since earlier this year – if Belizean environmentalists can persuade the Supreme Court to uphold the law.
China’s Three Gorges Corporation vying to build world’s largest hydro project in Central Africa
(June 22, 2007) As China’s Three Gorges dam nears completion, the company responsible for building and financing the world’s largest dam is vying to construct an even more ambitious hydro project in central Africa.
Probe International opposes World Bank financing for Congo dams
(May 28, 2007) Probe International tells the World Bank to halt all loans to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Inga dam project until those affected by the dam are provided with the water, sanitation, electricity, health and education services promised to them more than 30 years ago.
Graft Fights Back
(May 9, 2007) A majority on the World Bank’s board, many of whom are directors from Third World countries opposed to president Paul Wolfowitz’s anti-corruption campaign, understandably want him out. But why is the World Bank Group Staff Association so intent on getting rid of Wolfowitz?
Internal Attack
(April 17, 2007) Since its creation in 1944, the World Bank has become the world’s leading architect of Third World corruption. In the Third World countries themselves, the World Bank has created hundreds of state-owned enterprises and then lavished them with money, requiring their officials to subject themselves neither to public oversight nor the bank’s own scrutiny. Among the Western suppliers to these corrupt state corporations, the bank awarded billions of dollars in contracts, again without public oversight or bank scrutiny, let alone market discipline.
Address to the European Commission conference on export credit agencies and sustainable development
(June 20, 2006) Thank you very much to FERN and to the European Commission. It is an honour for me to be here to discuss this very important subject – how to prevent more unpayable Third World debts being created by the world’s export credit agencies.
Export credit debt prevention: speech by Patricia Adams
(June 20, 2006) I suspect the vast majority of ECA loans, credits, and guarantees to the Third World – which have doubled and now account for 34% of all Third World official debts – could be deemed "odious."
Export credit debt prevention
(June 20, 2006) Three steps to protecting future generations from export credit agencies.
World Bank says benefits of Chinese hydro dam ‘impossible to quantify’
(January 18, 2006) The World Bank has given China’s second-largest hydro project a satisfactory rating on the resettlement of 46,000 people, despite having no data to assess whether anyone is better or worse off.
Chinese dam benefits ‘impossible to quantify’: World Bank
(January 16, 2006) The World Bank has given Ertan, China’s second-largest hydro project, a satisfactory rating on the resettlement of 46,000 people, despite having no data to assess whether anyone is better or worse off.
PRESS RELEASE Export Development Canada keeps taxpayers in the dark, says Rosen and Associates Limited
(June 14, 2005) A report by one of Canada’s leading forensic accounting firms, Toronto-based Rosen and Associates, criticizes the 2003 annual report of Export Development Canada for not differentiating between commercial and politically-mandated activities. EDC is a crown corporation that in 2003 backstopped $51.9 billion in exports and international investments by Canadian enterprises. The Rosen and Associates study focused on the financial reporting relating to EDC’s loan portfolio.
PRESS RELEASE: World Bank dam will generate debt burden for Laotians
(April 1, 2005) The World Bank’s decision to finance the US$1.2 billion Nam Theun 2 hydro project will become an intractable debt burden for Laotians in years to come, warns Probe International, a Canadian-based foreign aid watchdog. "It is projects like Nam Theun 2 that eventually need debt forgiveness because they are not economically viable and they don’t generate the wealth needed to repay the loans," said Patricia Adams, Probe’s executive director and an expert on odious Third World debt.
Patricia Adams
Dai Qing
Fan Xiao
Lawrence Solomon
Mu Lan
Probe International
Lisa Peryman
Probe Media
Other News Sources
Probe International 