A Supreme Court decision involving the World Bank and Canadian engineering giant SNC-Lavalin could threaten fair trials for falsely accused Canadians in the future and help corrupt Canadians to escape punishment. Patricia Adams of Probe International for the Financial Post.
Answerable to no one
Just as China took a moment to enjoy Washington and Tokyo’s discomfort over Europe’s biggest economies declaring in favour of a new Chinese-led Asian investment bank, Washington and Tokyo took a moment to caution joiners to beware of governance standards. We say: beware of multilateral development banks in general.
Dam fools
(April 11, 2014) A report representing the most comprehensive economic analysis of large dams ever undertaken has dealt a stunning blow to the behemoths of hydropower. But will its findings be enough to curb a new wave in mega-dam construction? Unlikely, says Probe International.
Odious debt and Egypt: revolt citizens, revolt!
(April 27, 2011) Egypt’s period of political transition presents an ideal time to examine the odious nature of debt accrued by deposed President Hosni Mubarak’s government, whose time in power amounts to almost 30 years in the borrowing.
“World Bank disgrace”: Wall Street Journal
(January 16, 2008) A review of World Bank loans to India’s health sector by the Bank’s own internal watchdog, indicates fraud and corruption put lives at risk, enriching contractors in the process. Worse still, says WSJ, the bank repeatedly looked the other way.
Folsom quits
(January 16, 2008) The World Bank’s chief anti-corruption investigator calls it a day: pressure to leave over allegations her appointment due to Republican party connections.
First the mutiny, then the silver
(December 19, 2007) In the wake of a staff mutiny against former World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, the U.K. edition of The Economist notes that the lending giant’s new head, Robert Zoellick, has raised a windfall in support from rich countries.
World bankruptcy
(November 28, 2007) When the World Bank staff staged a coup against then-President Paul Wolfowitz earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal editorials argued that one motivation was to stop his anti-corruption fight. Now The WSJ describes “another backroom putsch,” this time against Suzanne Rich Folsom, the head of the bank’s anticorruption unit (INT, or department of institutional integrity).
Fearing odious debt challenges, the World Bank attempts to dismiss the legal concept
(October 20, 2007) The World Bank’s controversial discussion paper on odious debt released last month has been met with disbelief and scorn. A review by Probe International’s executive director, Patricia Adams, concludes that it “is not a serious treatment of the rigorous scholarly debate now occurring over the concept of odious debts.”


