Editorial Desk :
The acquittal of three SNC-Lavalin employees in Padma Bridge corruption case by an Ontario court in Canada on Friday has sparked renewed anger of government leaders in Bangladesh against the World Bank and the opposition who decried the ‘corruption’ when it broke in public in 2011.
The corruption case was started by Canadian authority, but not the World Bank, yet the World Bank has to explain its position since the Canadian Court did not find the accused persons guilty of involvement in corruption effort with the World Bank money. It is also not the case
of World Bank that actual corruption took place. The allegation was discovery of network of corruption plan. World Bank never files a corruption case against any country.
In a fiery debate in Parliament on Sunday Ministers and lawmakers charged WB and some other civil society leaders in the country for running malicious campaign against the government based on the so-called Padma Bridge corruption scandals and demanded apology from them.
They blamed the World Bank for severely tarnishing the image of the government and the country as a whole at home and abroad ending in the termination of US$ 1.2 billion WB fund for the Bridge Project. They acted like enemies of the nation, the government leaders complained.
The WB Dhaka Office was not much helpful to clear the issue yesterday as to why the bank did not furnish materials to prove the case in the Canadian Court. As it is not an ordinary bank the World Bank owes an explanation to clear its position as to why it failed to submit pleas in defense.
One WB official in Dhaka said their common practice is that if charges of corruption involving the bank funded project comes up, probe team opens investigation and it was also done in case of Padma Bridge. He said all these decisions come from above and Dhaka Office is not competent to make comment. On demand for apology from WB, its Dhaka Office also avoided comment.
As per Canadian daily The Globe and Mail Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) had opened the corruption case in Ontario Court against five persons including three SNC Lavalin employees for attempting to bribing Bangladesh officials and two lobbyists for a 50 million dollar engineering contract of the Padma Bridge.
But the Ontario judge refused during the hearing to accept wiretap, as key evidence to the case, which he said to have come from e-mail sent by anonymous or unreliable tipsters which looks like ‘gossip and rumor,’ He demanded corruption dossiers in this particular case from the World Bank to prove the case.
But WB refused to produce such evidence saying it may expose local sources jeopardizing their safety. WB even went to Canadian Supreme Court in 2013 to avoid placing its dossiers and get acceptance of the wiretap evidence only to fail. Probing case is difficult in many cases.
The court dropped charges against two accused earlier and the acquittal of the three now namely Kevin Wallace, Ramesh Shah and Bangladeshi-Canadian Zulfiquar Ali Bhuiyan cleared all five from the case.
Strictly speaking the Canadian case does not prove anything about the World Bank’s suspicion of corruption plan around Padma Bridge in Bangladesh.
On September 21, 2011 the World Bank gave the government a report from its Integrity Vice-Presidency Office that said SAHCO, a firm named for and connected to the then communications minister Syed Abul Hossain, was bringing pressure on companies to use his firm’s service to secure the main bridge contract.
The report is believed to have contained allegations by eleven confidential witnesses against the company. This was a question of trust and confidence about the World Bank’s money to be invested.
In our view the World Bank should not have denied money for Padma Bridge Project when network of corruption was revealed and Bangladesh government assured cooperation.
The acquittal of three SNC-Lavalin employees in Padma Bridge corruption case by an Ontario court in Canada on Friday has sparked renewed anger of government leaders in Bangladesh against the World Bank and the opposition who decried the ‘corruption’ when it broke in public in 2011.
The corruption case was started by Canadian authority, but not the World Bank, yet the World Bank has to explain its position since the Canadian Court did not find the accused persons guilty of involvement in corruption effort with the World Bank money. It is also not the case
of World Bank that actual corruption took place. The allegation was discovery of network of corruption plan. World Bank never files a corruption case against any country.
In a fiery debate in Parliament on Sunday Ministers and lawmakers charged WB and some other civil society leaders in the country for running malicious campaign against the government based on the so-called Padma Bridge corruption scandals and demanded apology from them.
They blamed the World Bank for severely tarnishing the image of the government and the country as a whole at home and abroad ending in the termination of US$ 1.2 billion WB fund for the Bridge Project. They acted like enemies of the nation, the government leaders complained.
The WB Dhaka Office was not much helpful to clear the issue yesterday as to why the bank did not furnish materials to prove the case in the Canadian Court. As it is not an ordinary bank the World Bank owes an explanation to clear its position as to why it failed to submit pleas in defense.
One WB official in Dhaka said their common practice is that if charges of corruption involving the bank funded project comes up, probe team opens investigation and it was also done in case of Padma Bridge. He said all these decisions come from above and Dhaka Office is not competent to make comment. On demand for apology from WB, its Dhaka Office also avoided comment.
As per Canadian daily The Globe and Mail Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) had opened the corruption case in Ontario Court against five persons including three SNC Lavalin employees for attempting to bribing Bangladesh officials and two lobbyists for a 50 million dollar engineering contract of the Padma Bridge.
But the Ontario judge refused during the hearing to accept wiretap, as key evidence to the case, which he said to have come from e-mail sent by anonymous or unreliable tipsters which looks like ‘gossip and rumor,’ He demanded corruption dossiers in this particular case from the World Bank to prove the case.
But WB refused to produce such evidence saying it may expose local sources jeopardizing their safety. WB even went to Canadian Supreme Court in 2013 to avoid placing its dossiers and get acceptance of the wiretap evidence only to fail. Probing case is difficult in many cases.
The court dropped charges against two accused earlier and the acquittal of the three now namely Kevin Wallace, Ramesh Shah and Bangladeshi-Canadian Zulfiquar Ali Bhuiyan cleared all five from the case.
Strictly speaking the Canadian case does not prove anything about the World Bank’s suspicion of corruption plan around Padma Bridge in Bangladesh.
On September 21, 2011 the World Bank gave the government a report from its Integrity Vice-Presidency Office that said SAHCO, a firm named for and connected to the then communications minister Syed Abul Hossain, was bringing pressure on companies to use his firm’s service to secure the main bridge contract.
The report is believed to have contained allegations by eleven confidential witnesses against the company. This was a question of trust and confidence about the World Bank’s money to be invested.
In our view the World Bank should not have denied money for Padma Bridge Project when network of corruption was revealed and Bangladesh government assured cooperation.
