Ilisu dam:
Skanska drops out
 

Peter Bosshard

Berne Declaration

According to a report in the "Financial Times" of 26 September, Skanska, the Swedish construction company, has decided to pull out of the Ilisu consortium. According to the FT, Skanska said the decision was taken due to unspecified negotiating problems which were not related to the protests by environmental and human rights groups. Yet since summer 1999, there had been signs that Skanska was unhappy about the violation of World Bank guidelines by the Ilisu project. As "Cumhuriyet" reported on 21 September, the Turkish secretary of state recently ruled out any interference from foreign governments regarding Ilisu, thus further diminishing the prospects of bringing the dam project in line with international standards.

According to the FT, Skanska held a 24 per cent stake in the Ilisu consortium, which is headed by Sulzer Hydro. According to government sources, the Swedish export credit agency EKN was supposed to contribute 7 per cent of the costs of Ilisu, or 12.5 per cent of all funding provided by export credit agencies.

According to the FT article, the British construction company Balfour Beatty maintained that Ilisu was not dead. Yet any company which decides to join Ilisu consortium a this point, in full knowledge of the social, environmental and political problems of the project, will face a lot of NGO opposition and public criticism. So Skanska's decision to drop out of Ilisu might well be a further nail in the coffin of the project.

Peter Bosshard, Berne Declaration
P.O. Box 1327, 8031 Zurich, Switzerland
ph +41 1 277 70 07, fax +41 1 277 70 01, finance@evb.ch, www.evb.ch