By Andrei Skvarsky.
The African Development Bank (AfDB) has temporarily barred Danish power plant developer Burmeister & Wain Scandinavian Contractor (BWSC) from all its projects after accusing it of a fraudulent attempt to win a contract in Mauritius.
The AfDB said in a statement there was evidence that BWSC had bribed Mauritian officials to obtain confidential details of rules of tendering in 2014 and 2015 for an AfDB-funded power plant redevelopment project in Mauritius.
Under an agreement with other multilateral development banks, the AfDB’s 21-month debarment of BWSC would automatically entail its debarment by the Asian Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank Group.
BWSC responded that the alleged fraud was a fact but blamed it on “certain employees” of the Danish firm who had been “summarily dismissed” with two of them being reported to the Danish police.
Moreover, BWSC CEO Nikolaj Holmer Nissen said in a statement, it was only after BWSC carried out its own inquiry based on a tip-off from a whistleblower and “self-reported” to the AfDB that the bank launched a probe that led to its accusations.
On June 4, BWSC and the AfDB “reached a settlement that concludes AfDB’s investigation into the case of suspected corruption”, Nissen said.
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