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How many IFIs – and how many millions – does it take to make a safe road?

Bankwatch Mail | 14 December, 2012 | Download PDF

Last month, residents in the village of Krupets in Ukraine blocked the Kyiv-Chop road that runs straight through the village. Their protest – the road was blocked off for more than 90 minutes – came as a result of horrifying car accidents (including ten fatal car accidents since the beginning of this year) that have taken place in their community due to the lack of a speed limit, street lighting and appropriate traffic signs. The regional prosecutor office has initiated a case against the regional roads agency for alleged violation of road and traffic safety standards.


Europe’s PPP crisis – European Commission and EIB magic up the ‘project bonds’ elixir

Bankwatch Mail | 14 December, 2012 | Download PDF

Although public authorities appear increasingly to be turning their backs on public-private partnerships (PPPs) for delivery of services and the provision of infrastructure, the beleaguered investment vehicle continues to be aggressively promoted by the European Commission and the European Investment Bank (EIB). An official in-depth evaluation of this financing model, however, remains long overdue.


Some points of departure – interview with the new president of the EBRD

Bankwatch Mail | 14 December, 2012 | Download PDF

Sir Suma Chakrabarti became the sixth president of the EBRD this summer. Bankwatch Mail caught up with him recently to ask him his views on the bank’s operations in central and eastern Europe and, now, further afield, as well as on a few of the more acute issues that are currently high on the agenda – both for the EBRD and watchdog organisations like Bankwatch.


IFI negligence rife at first major post-revolution project in Egypt

Bankwatch Mail | 14 December, 2012 | Download PDF

A USD 3.7 billion PPP oil refinery expansion in Cairo is accompanied by contradictory project documents, making a mockery of claims by the public banks involved to be committed to ‘good governance’ or democracy. Despite being presented as merely translations of one document, the Arabic and English ‘versions’ are entirely different – with the Arabic markedly cursory and superficial.


Never a dull moment in Slovene power plant soap opera

Bankwatch Mail | 14 December, 2012 | Download PDF

On November 30, the same day as the national government was under fire in the most heated protests Slovenia has seen in years, Slovenia’s ministers of finance and infrastructure added fuel to the flames by signing contracts with Simon Tot, director of the Sostanj lignite power plant for the controversial EUR 1.3 billion Sostanj Unit 6. These contracts prepare the ground for the signing of a state guarantee contract for a EUR 440 million loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB) for the project.