{"id":28033,"date":"2016-08-25T03:04:21","date_gmt":"2016-08-25T03:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/australian-companies-embroiled-in-bribery\/"},"modified":"2016-08-25T03:04:06","modified_gmt":"2016-08-25T03:04:06","slug":"australian-companies-embroiled-in-bribery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/australian-companies-embroiled-in-bribery\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian companies embroiled in bribery scandals in Sri Lanka and Congo"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Two Australian companies are being investigated over alleged bribery scandals linked to the presidents of Sri Lanka and the Congo, after the firms sought to secure multi-million-dollar contracts in those countries.}<\/p>\n

A Fairfax Media and 7.30 investigation can reveal Perth’s Sundance Resources is implicated in an alleged bribery plot involving some family members of Republic of Congo President Denis Sassou Nguesso.<\/p>\n

Engineering giant Snowy Mountain Engineering Company is being separately investigated over claims its staff sought approval to pay kickbacks to foreign officials, including a donation to the party of Sri Lanka’s president Maithripala Sirisena when he was a cabinet minister.<\/p>\n

While these matters are still being investigated, the revelations place pressure on the Turnbull Government to reform Australia’s maligned anti-corruption framework, and come after foreign bribery allegations implicating Tabcorp, Leighton Holdings and BHP Billiton.<\/p>\n

{{Iconic Australian firm facing bribery investigations}}<\/p>\n

The iconic Snowy Mountains Engineering Company (SMEC) is the subject of a major AFP probe examining the firm’s overseas operations.<\/p>\n

7.30 can reveal SMEC’s overseas staff allegedly bribed officials to secure a $2.3 million aid-funded sewerage project in Sri Lanka in 2011, and a smaller power plant project in Bangladesh in 2007.<\/p>\n

Leaked internal company emails also reveal claims from SMEC’s Sri Lankan manager in 2009 that then senior minister Maithripala Sirisena and one of his advisers allegedly requested a political “donation” before signing cabinet papers for a $1.82 million dam contract sought by SMEC. Mr Sirisena is now Sri Lanka’s President.<\/p>\n

“The minister … wants to know whether SMEC could make a donation for the elections,” an email from the SMEC manager states about his meeting with Mr Sirisena.<\/p>\n

The same email states: “[Mr Sirisena’s] Coordinating Secretary said this is the way it goes prior to signing the cabinet papers. He wants us to produce an amount\/percentage on the contract value.”<\/p>\n

In a statement overnight, Mr Sirisena said he had “no knowledge of the incident” and requested further details to “ascertain the involvement of any of his office staff”.<\/p>\n

The President also said he would co-operate “in any investigation” in Australia and “will also instruct the relevant local authorities to investigate”.<\/p>\n

The SMEC Sri Lankan manager also wrote he wanted to “inform the minister\/co-ordinating secretary” of the size of a suspected kickback to be paid. In another email, the manager said he needed to “prioritise” certain payments to unnamed parties “since the signing of the contract would depend” on it.<\/p>\n

In a statement, SMEC confirmed there was a “request for a political donation”.<\/p>\n

But it said its internal investigation had found that no payment was ever made by the company in response, and the firm “continues to fully cooperate with the AFP”.<\/p>\n

The iconic Snowy Mountains Engineering Company (SMEC) is the subject of a major AFP probe examining the firm’s overseas operations.<\/p>\n

7.30 can reveal SMEC’s overseas staff allegedly bribed officials to secure a $2.3 million aid-funded sewerage project in Sri Lanka in 2011, and a smaller power plant project in Bangladesh in 2007.<\/p>\n

Leaked internal company emails also reveal claims from SMEC’s Sri Lankan manager in 2009 that then senior minister Maithripala Sirisena and one of his advisers allegedly requested a political “donation” before signing cabinet papers for a $1.82 million dam contract sought by SMEC. Mr Sirisena is now Sri Lanka’s President.<\/p>\n

“The minister … wants to know whether SMEC could make a donation for the elections,” an email from the SMEC manager states about his meeting with Mr Sirisena.<\/p>\n

The same email states: “[Mr Sirisena’s] Coordinating Secretary said this is the way it goes prior to signing the cabinet papers. He wants us to produce an amount\/percentage on the contract value.”<\/p>\n

In a statement overnight, Mr Sirisena said he had “no knowledge of the incident” and requested further details to “ascertain the involvement of any of his office staff”.<\/p>\n

The President also said he would co-operate “in any investigation” in Australia and “will also instruct the relevant local authorities to investigate”.<\/p>\n

The SMEC Sri Lankan manager also wrote he wanted to “inform the minister\/co-ordinating secretary” of the size of a suspected kickback to be paid. In another email, the manager said he needed to “prioritise” certain payments to unnamed parties “since the signing of the contract would depend” on it.<\/p>\n

In a statement, SMEC confirmed there was a “request for a political donation”.<\/p>\n

But it said its internal investigation had found that no payment was ever made by the company in response, and the firm “continues to fully cooperate with the AFP”.<\/p>\n

\"Sundance<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Two Australian companies are being investigated over alleged bribery scandals linked to the presidents of Sri Lanka and the Congo, after the firms sought to secure multi-million-dollar contracts in those countries.} A Fairfax Media and 7.30 investigation can reveal Perth’s Sundance Resources is implicated in an alleged bribery plot involving some family members of Republic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99],"byline":[2573],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-28033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-abc"],"bylines":[{"id":2573,"name":"ABC","slug":"abc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2573,"name":"ABC","slug":"abc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28033\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28033"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=28033"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=28033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}