Ethics Newsline®

Special to Newsline from Canadian correspondent Errol P. Mendes

TORONTO
A columnist writing in the National Post reports that a former CEO of a $2.4 billion dam project in Lesotho, a tiny country landlocked by South Africa, faces a criminal trial on charges of taking bribes.

Columnist Patricia Adams says Mashpha Sole is charged with accepting bribes from a major Canadian engineering company, Acres International, and 11 other multinational companies, including the Swiss-Swedish giant ABB, the Italian company Impregilo, and the German firm ED Zueblin.

The World Bank, which has financed approximately $155 million of the dam project, will also launch its own investigation to see if its contracts were also tainted by bribery, Adams reported.

Companies proved to be involved in corrupt activities could be barred from bidding on future World Bank projects, a grave financial threat to the 12 firms implicated in the Lesotho bribery charges.