According to media reports, subsidiaries and/or affiliates of Chinese companies competing to build Guyana’s natural gas power plant at Wales, West Bank Demerara, have been blacklisted for fraudulent practices in relation to the award of contracts funded by World Bank. In September 2019, the Bank blacklisted the subsidiary of one company with a 20-month debarment for providing falsified documents on past performance on the basis of which it won a contract for a transmission and distribution rehabilitation project in Zambia. The ban was, however, lifted in May 2021, following certain actions the company took as regards its integrity and compliance management systems and corporate governance arrangements.
Last May, in a separate case involving the same company, Zambia’s Anti-Corruption Commission arrested the country’s former Secretary to the Treasury for failure to follow the approved procedures when he authorized an advance payment of US$33.8 million for the construction of a university. To date, no university has been built. The architect for the project was also arrested.