Corruption

Alstom Company Headquarters (archive)

On the same day that Alstom announced its biggest contract ever for dam-building equipment - a US$700 million deal to furnish turbines and other materials for Santo Antonio Dam on the Madeira River in the Brazilian Amazon, Brazil´s federal prosecutors announced they will begin a new investigation into charges that the company handed out millions in bribes to politicians in São Paulo to win a lucrative Metro contract.

Kosi River Breaks Embankment

Transparency International’s Global Corruption Report 2008, to which your blogger contributed a brief paper, is devoted to corruption in the water sector. It states forcefully that “corruption in the water sector puts the lives and livelihoods of billions of people at risk”. The recent flood disaster on the Kosi River in Nepal and India illustrates in a shocking way how corruption, dams and disaster feed on each other.

Nigeria is being rocked by a huge corruption scandal. As President Yar’Adua recently revealed, the administration of his predecessor spent $16 billion on the power sector, but appears to have diverted much of the money. The ongoing investigation has unearthed interesting details about how corruption works in practice. The story involves dam builders from Germany, China and other countries and senior World Bank officials.