World Bank blacklists US firm for corruption

December 04, 2010 | 10:22

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The World Bank said Friday it has barred business with a US company for 12 years, alleging fraud and corruption in development projects.

image source : infosecurity.us

The anti-poverty lender said it had banned Kwaplah International Trading Company, based in Oregon, and its American-Liberian owner, Sherlock Mahn, together with any organization they directly or indirectly control.

They were debarred "for engaging in corrupt and fraudulent practices in Bank-financed projects implemented in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Ukraine, Ghana, Gambia and Liberia," the bank said in a statement.

"This is the second-longest debarment since the Bank began sanctioning firms in 1999," it added.

The Washington-based World Bank also announced that, for the first time, it had sanctioned for corruption another company barred by another multilateral development lender -- 12 firms blacklisted by the Asian Development Bank.

The action was taken under an April mutual-enforcement pact it entered into with the African Development Bank Group, Asian Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Inter-American Development Bank Group.

Under the agreement, entities debarred by one multilateral development bank may be sanctioned for the same misconduct by other participating development banks.

"This enforcement action is sending a very powerful signal of how the global anticorruption landscape is fast forwarding. This progress cannot be reversed," Leonard McCarthy, World Bank vice president for integrity, said in the statement.

AFP

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