Transparency campaigners say the EBRD’s failure to provide information about a controversial loan to the Polish supermarket chain Kaufland is symptomatic of the bank’s overcautious public information policy.
A request by Polish Green Network for documents relating to the loan, sent on May 2 to the bank’s general enquiries desk and NGO liaison staff, has not been answered or even acknowledged. That happens far too often, says Bankwatch, an NGO that monitors development banks’ social and environmental policies.
The EBRD last year made a E160 million loan to German-owned Kaufland, despite Poland’s labour inspectorate having found 1,347 irregularities in its stores. After NGO protests, reported in Emerging Markets, the bank met with Kaufland and told managers that loan disbursement was conditional on its labour practices being improved.
Bankwatch’s argument concerns the monitoring of that process. Polish Green Network says it cannot get access to information on Kaufland’s labour procedures compiled by the company, the EBRD
and an independent expert commissioned by the bank. A bank spokesman said yesterday that the agriculture team, which handles the loan, has no record of Polish Green Network’s request, and that the issues raised by the labour inspectorate had been dealt with.
“It’s been impossible for trades unionists and NGOs to find out details of the action plan agreed by Kaufland and the EBRD,” Klara Schirova of Bankwatch told Emerging Markets yesterday. “The problem is the EBRD’s public information policy, which does not state how much time the bank should have to respond to queries, to whom a request for information should be sent. Neither are there any requirements to give reasons for non-disclosure.”
On Friday the bank issued a draft of its new public information policy, amended after public consultation – and rejection of most of the transparency campaigners’ key proposals. Bankwatch says the bank’s “presumption of disclosure” does not work in practice, and won’t do until processes are clearly in place.
The campaigners argue that the principle of commercial confidentiality is often misused to conceal information on environmental and social impacts of projects. They further propose an “overriding public interest” concept that would allow the bank to release information in cases of serious environmental damage or corruption.
The EBRD falls far short of international best practice – and in particular of the IMF Guide on Resource Revenue Transparency – on disclosure of investment contracts in natural resource sectors, the Global Transparency Initiative says.