Last
year’s arrest of two former executives of Canadian engineering giant SNC
Lavalin, coupled with ongoing construction corruption investigations in Canada
and Bangladesh prompted the World Bank to announce June 29 that it has canceled
funding participation in a $3 billion road and bridge project which would have
included construction of the AECOM designed Padma Bridge southwest of Dhaka.
The World Bank commitment of $1.2 billion in financing, withdrawn as a result
of the corruption charges, leaves in limbo both the future of the project and
the fate of financing commitments for an additional $1.7 billion promised from
the government of Bangladesh, the Asian Development Bank, Japan International
Cooperation and the Islamic Development Bank. Though Bangladeshi officials have
promised to find another way to finance completion of the project, its future
is imperiled with the World Bank out of the picture and corruption
investigations underway since last September.
World
Bank President Jim Yong Kim approved the cancelation. The World Bank says it
has presented credible evidence of a high level corruption conspiracy among
Bangladeshi government officials, SNC Lavalin and others to Bangladeshi Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina, Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith and Anti-Corruption
Commission Chairman Ghulam Rahman. World Bank officials are urging the Bangladeshi
government to prosecute anyone found responsible for corruption on the project.
