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Chinese firms tendering for Amaila Falls Project were blacklisted for procurement fraud
Kaieteur News – The three Chinese-owned companies bidding for the 165 megawatt (MW) Amaila Falls Hydropower Project were once blacklisted by the World Bank over fraudulent procurement practices.
An artist’s impression of the proposed Amaila Falls Hydropower facility.
The companies: China Rail-way Group Limited, Sinohydro Corporation Limited and China Gez-houba Group Company along with Brazilian-owned Rialma S.A (Groupo Rialma) submitted Request For Proposals (RFPs) in early October to the Ministry of Natural Resources at the opening of tenders for the resuscitation of the project which is slated to begin sometime next year.
Checks conducted by this publication found that China Railway which the PPP/C government had intended years ago to develop this project was in 2019 debarred by the World Bank for practices considered fraudulent on a highway project in the country of Georgia.
China Railway was established in 1950 and is a subsidiary of China Railway Engineering Group (CREG). The company had bid before, years back for this same project but a Norwegian Ethics Council had raised questions about the involvement of the Chinese firm in a significant corruption case.
Another company too which had its own cases of corruption in the past, is that of Sinohydro Corporation. Kaieteur News found that this company was not only blacklisted by the World Bank but it was also flagged by the African Development Bank.
Sinohydro had engaged in a fraudulent practice by bidding for works contracts in an African Development Bank financed Road Sector Support Project in Uganda. According to research, in 2013, the company was said to have participated in a tender for works in Uganda. Investigations carried out by the Office of Integrity and Anti-Corruption found Sinohydro misrepresented its prior project experience by using not yet successfully and substantially completed contracts as references.
A family in Uganda had sued its government and Sinohydro in 2015 for unlawfully crushing its rock into aggregate and using it to construct Karuma hydro-electric power dam without compensation.
As for Geiz-houba Group, which is also bidding for the project, was blacklisted in 2015 by the World Bank for misconduct involving three of the Bank’s financed project in the People’s Republic of China. There, the company was debarred for a period of 18 months. This company is also vying to construct the New Demerara Harbour Bridge.
The Amaila project, which was proposed years ago was stalled in 2013 after the Opposition controlled National Assembly refused to pass key environmental legislation required by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to approve part of the requested financing.
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