CANBERRA — When news broke of the World Bank’s decision to debar five subsidiaries of SMEC for bribery and misrepresentation in a number of World Bank-financed projects, it raised questions among private sector development partners about what an organization can do to get re-listed.
SMEC is hardly the only organization to be made ineligible to bid for World Bank projects. As of October 19, a total of 990 firms were listed as ineligible — 102 of them permanently. For those permanently debarred, getting re-listed is not an option.
The case of the SMEC subsidiaries, which were only temporarily debarred, shows some other options for large companies. While five subsidiaries were debarred, other arms of the operation were not. This enables SMEC to continue bidding for projects.
In their ongoing work targeting corruption in aid and development, the World Bank has announced new debarments of companies from bidding and winning contracts with the bank — including five subsidiaries of SMEC, a leading supplier of engineering services for aid and development projects throughout the world. But as SMEC are managing multimillion dollar aid projects currently in operation, what happens now? Devex investigates.
For those unable to continue bidding through another arm of the business, there is important advice to follow on reducing the sanctions and ensuring that once the minimum debarment period is complete, the organization can be re-listed.
About the authors
Lisa Cornishlisa_cornish
Lisa Cornish is a Devex Reporter based in Canberra, where she focuses on the Australian aid community. Lisa formerly worked with News Corp Australia as a data journalist for the national network and was published throughout Australia in major metropolitan and regional newspapers, including the Daily Telegraph in Melbourne, Herald Sun in Melbourne, Courier-Mail in Brisbane, and online through news.com.au. Lisa additionally consults with Australian government providing data analytics, reporting and visualization services. Lisa was awarded the 2014 Journalist of the Year by the New South Wales Institute of Surveyors.
Jenny Lei Ravelo@JennyLeiRavelo
Jenny Lei Ravelo is a Devex Senior Reporter based in Manila. She covers global health, with a particular focus on the World Health Organization, and other development and humanitarian aid trends in Asia Pacific. Prior to Devex, she wrote for ABS-CBN, one of the largest broadcasting networks in the Philippines, and was a copy editor for various international scientific journals. She received her journalism degree from the University of Santo Tomas.