Press Responses : Tuesday, May 15, 2001
PAPER The Ottawa Citizen
DATE Tuesday, May 15, 2001
EDITION Final
SECTION News
PAGE A5
LENGTH 645 words
STOTYPE Business
HEADLINE NGO group slams export agency's `reckless lending'
BYLINE Jack Aubry
SOURCE The Ottawa Citizen
NGO group slams export agency's 'reckless lending'
The Export Development Corporation is still assisting environmentally and socially disastrous projects around the world even after a framework review was introduced, says a new report by the NGO Working Group on the EDC.
The group published its 30-page document, called Reckless Lending, Volume II, yesterday, on the eve of the release of the auditor general's report on the EDC's environmental framework review.
"Our report demonstrates that not only is some of the EDC's loans damaging to the environment, but that their environmental framework has neither reduced nor eliminated such an impact,'' said Emilie Revil, spokesperson for the group.
The EDC is not covered by the Freedom of Information Act and has been sharply criticized for keeping billions of dollars in loans secret. The corporation, which offers loans, insurance, advice and other services to Canadian exporters and their clients, is undergoing legislative review this spring.
In an effort to counter the auditor general's report, EDC will release a new disclosure policy today outlining how it will make more information public and answer the non-governmental groups who say it has been operating under a cloak of secrecy.
Three of the eight projects cited in the NGO report were brought in after 1999 when the EDC introduced its new framework, which its critics say is ineffectual and falls far short of existing industry standards for environmental assessments.
The report said the Manantali Dam in Senegal, Mali and Mauritania, the Chamera II Dam in India and the Ralco Dam in Chile are causing social and environmental problems after receiving financing from the EDC.
A spokesman for the EDC said the Crown corporation was "a little disappointed" in the NGO's report since officials at the corporation had been working with the group in providing information about certain projects.
Rod Giles said the assessment contains inaccurate statements about some of the projects which are slammed in the document. For example, the PT Tanjung Enim Lestari pulp and paper mill, which was partly financed by the EDC in 1994 and 1997, is not destroying any rainforest but rather uses plantation wood in its production process.
The group, which includes the Halifax Initiative Coalition, the Canadian Labour Congress and MiningWatch Canada, advocates that the federal government regulate the EDC under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, increasing ministerial oversight and accountability. But the EDC argues it should be allowed to regulate itself.
