The World Bank Wednesday announced the debarment (udelukkelse) of 10 individuals and 26 firms for fraudulent and corrupt practices in relation to the World Bank-financed “Book and Reading Development Project” (BRDP) in Indonesia.
These firms and individuals will be ineligible to receive any new World Bank-financed contracts for the periods of their debarments. The World Bank also announced the issuance of four letters of reprimand in connection with the same project.
These actions are part of the World Bank’s broad anticorruption efforts initiated by President James Wolfensohn in 1996.
World Bank Country Director Andrew Steer welcomed the ruling, saying that, “the funds we lend must go to help the people of Indonesia reduce poverty”.
– In this case, getting textbooks into the hands of Indonesian school children was an urgent need and donors responded to meet that need. The World Bank has worked closely with the Government of Indonesia to uncover and correct the diversion of funds from this project through corrupt practices, added he.
Following an investigation by the World Banks Department of Institutional Integrity (INT), the Bank declared misprocurement and requested the Government of Indonesia to repay 10 million US dollar from the disbursed proceeds of the loan and to prepare and implement an acceptable action plan to improve the procurement process in the education sector.
The Book and Reading Development Project-related debarments mark the culmination of an investigation launched by the World Bank in late 2000 following an article in the Indonesian news magazine “Tempo,” in which allegations of fraud and corruption in the implementation of the BRDP were made.
The World Bank investigation was handled by INT and involved the collection and analysis of documents as well as the interviewing of many witnesses. The Banks Sanctions Committee issued notices of debarment to firms and individuals allegedly involved in fraudulent and corrupt practices under the project. All of the firms and individuals were granted the opportunity to dispute the charges.
The Sanctions Committees debarment decisions were based on a preponderance of the evidence that in every one of the three completed procurement rounds of the project, the debarred publishers engaged in fraudulent and corrupt practices in the procurement process.
The period of debarment varies between two years, for those individuals and firms which participated in the scheme but not as principal organizers, to 15 years for those individuals and firms which played a central role in the scheme and were its primary beneficiaries through the size and/or number of contracts they won under the project.
One firm and three individuals received public letters of reprimand from the World Bank, but remain eligible for World Bank-financed contracts.
The BRDP, which commenced in October 1995, was implemented by the Ministry of Education and Culture (MOEC) and sought to improve the quality of basic education in Indonesia through the supply of and demand for textbooks.
The BRDP was funded in part from a World Bank loan valued at 132,5 million US dollar, which funded the purchase of textbooks for Indonesias junior secondary schools.
The project envisioned four rounds of textbook procurement over the years 1996-2000. For a number of reasons, the fourth procurement round was cancelled and the project closed on December 31, 2001, having disbursed only 53,232 million US dollar of the loan amount.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
