ECA insures dodgy mine with public money

The Export Finance Insurance Corporation (EFIC), the Australian government’s export credit agency (ECA – see ALU 43) recently underwrote risk insurance for the Sepon gold and copper mine in Laos. The mine is funded by a joint venture between the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation and Australian mineral firm, Oxiana.
Kate Walsh of Australia’s AID/Watch commented, “This mine is deficient in many areas including attention to independent monitoring, mine closure, risk assessment, impact on fisheries therefore food security, and community development … The Australian government should not be using taxpayer’s money to underwrite such an environmentally risky project. In the end, if there are any problems the Australian public will ultimately pick up the bill. This is an unacceptable use of public funds. If a project such as the controversial Sepon Gold Mine can pass the test and receive public money, then it shows that the guidelines are totally inadequate.”

Walsh is worried about the monitoring as it is being conducted by the Lao government. Her organisation expects this project to lead to a review of the regulations that control EFIC operations that were introduced as recently as 2000.

Excerpt from UK comedian Mark Thomas’ TV show

Mark Thomas: So tonight’s show is about the Export Credit Guarantee Department [UK’s ECA]. I thought, right, we’re going to start, we’ll phone up the Chief Press Officer, right? A guy called Robin Ogleby. And I said, ‘It’s Mark Thomas here; I just wanted to talk to you about some of the stuff that you’ve been underwriting.’
He said, ‘Oh, we’ve been doing a lot of airbuses recently.’
I said, ‘Really?’
He said, ‘Yes, a lot of civilian stuff.’
I said, ‘That sounds very interesting.’
He said, ‘Yes, yes it really is very interesting.’
I said, ‘Much military stuff?’
He said, ‘Oh, not really, not really.’
I said, ‘Oh, it’s just that in the House of Commons Library it says that 51 percent of that three billion is military.’
‘ Oh, is it as much as that?’
‘ Well you’re the fucking press officer, mate.’
But the weird thing is I said to him, ‘Why do you just keep flogging all this stuff to dodgy dictators?’
And he said, ‘Well actually, the thing is Mark, dictators rarely default.’
I said, ‘Well what about from Indonesia, they defaulted on Hawk jets, you had to restructure the loan.
What about Saddam Hussein? We sold 670-million pounds worth of stuff to him, which he defaulted on and we ended up paying for.
So we not only armed Saddam Hussein, we paid for it as well (to quote Robin Cook: 1992, Hansard).’
And he said, ‘Yes, we’re quite angry with Saddam Hussein.’