Call for Accountability: IDB's Loan to Peruvian Government

In addition to the loan to Transportadora de Gas del Perú (TGP) in 2002, the IDB approved a $5 million loan to the Government of Peru for a program to strengthen government oversight of environmental and social issues related to Camisea.

María Elena Foronda, President of Peru's National Environment Society (Sociedad Nacional del Ambiente) is calling on Peru's government accounting office to look into how this money was spent considering the serious environemtnal adn social impacts of the project.

Peru's Grupo Técnico de Coordinación Interinstitucional (GTCI) is the entity formed in 2002 to administer these resources and consisits of 12 agencies. according to their website their last activities were in March of 2005. GTCI did not respond to La Republica's request for an interview.

Article in La Republica (Spanish)

"TGP makes it clear that it is absolutely false that we have used rusted materials in construction of the pipeline"
Cartoon in La Republica

Préstamo para gas natural en duda

El financiamiento del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID) para el proyecto de exportación del gas natural licuado (LNG, por sus siglas en inglés) de Camisea estaría condicionado a los resultados de la auditoría a los ductos. Según informó el diario "Financial Times", el proyecto requiere US$400 millones del BID. El presidente de este organismo multilateral, Luis Alberto Moreno, recalcó que no han cerrado la posibilidad de otorgar el préstamo, aunque remarcó que sin la auditoría no se podrá continuar con la segunda fase. Fuente: El Comercio

IDB loan for Camisea II dependent on audit

The IDB told the Financial Times that new IDB loans for the Camisea project would be dependent on the outcomes of environmental and technical audits. The project consortium is looking for $400 million in loans from the IDB for the second phase of the project to liquify natural gas. Luis Alberto Moreno, the IDB president, told the FT: “We are not even close to approving the loan. Without the audit we can’t go to the second phase.”

TGP will pay for audit

According to OSINERG, Camisea Pipeline Consortium, TGP, will foot the bill for the technical audit of the pipeline, not the Peruvian government or the IDB. Alfredo Dammert, OSINERG president, said that money will be desposited in an OSINERG account and that TGP will have no influence over the audit. He said the selection of the auditing company will be carried out by the Ministry of Energy and Mines, OSINERG (part of MEM) and the IDB.

Bill Powers, E-Tech engineer, has responded saying that this change in the audit cannot guarantee its transparency. He also pointed out that the IDB's loan conditions requiered an independent monitoring system but that the IDB has been too controlling of the design of the system and has guaranteed it's failure by only offering $40,000 to pay for it.

Interview in El Comercio with Bill Powers (Spanish)