ID DEMANDS GREATER CLARITY ON WORLD BANK LOAN

ID will insist that it be brought to Parliament for thorough scrutiny

ID's spokesperson on public enterprises, Lance Greyling has demanded that the details of the World Bank loan be brought to parliament for thorough scrutiny. "It is important that Parliament is thoroughly briefed on all the issues pertaining to this loan as it will have major implications for our country going forward," stated Greyling. "It is imperative that Parliament is allowed to play its proper oversight role and that all issues such as any conditionalities, interest repayments and specific timelines relating to this loan are brought to the public enterprises committee."

"I will therefore be writing a letter to the chairperson of the public enterprises committee requesting that both the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Public Enterprises briefs us on all these issues and supplies us with all the necessary documentation relating to this loan. The ID is specifically interested to see whether any conditionalities relating to the divestment of the ANC's front company Chancellor House from Hitachi Power Africa has been stipulated by the World Bank, as this conflict of interest clearly violates their Code of Good Practice relating to good governance principles. It is stipulated in this code that a loan can be rescinded if any of these principles are breached by the recipient country.

It is for this reason that I wrote to the World Bank a month ago asking them to include this divestment as a conditionality. Their response to my letter was extremely vague, but now that the loan has been approved, the ID firmly believes that the World Bank has a duty to clearly explain whether they will be taking a strong stance against this blatant conflict of interest.

The ID is also disappointed that the bulk of the money for this loan will be going towards the building of the Medupi coal fired power station, with only a marginal amount going towards the funding of renewable energy technologies. The ID does, however hope that the money for the wind farm and the concentrated solar power plant will be fast-tracked by the World Bank and that pressure will be brought to bear on Eskom to start construction on these immediately. Eskom has delayed the building of these projects for over ten years and the ID maintains that we can no longer allow them to hold back our country from pursuing a clean energy path.

Statement issued by Lance Greyling. Independent Democrats spokesperson on public enterprises, April 9 2010

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