UK DEMANDS INVESTIGATION OF WORLD BANK CORRUPTION ALLEGATIONS IN ARMENIA
By M. Alkhazashvili

The Messenger, Georgia
Oct 4 2007

The British government has pressed the World Bank to investigate
claims that its Armenia office has been involved in corruption,
reports the news agency Regnum.

In 2004 British national Bruce Tasker operated as part of an Armenian
Municipal Development Project Study into a USD 35 million World Bank
project to improve Yerevan’s water supply.

The study quickly discovered shortcomings and irregularities and,
according to Tasker, revealed the director general of the Yerevan
Water & Sewerage Company had embezzled tens of millions of dollars
from the Armenian state budget.

However, more sensationally, the team claimed its findings implicated
the World Bank as "undoubtedly" a collaborator in a "wide-ranging
agenda of corruption."

Although at the time the allegations elicited apparent "concern"
from the World Bank office in Yerevan, it appears attempts were made
by high-ranking Armenian political figures to shut down the project.

The allegations have remained out of the public eye until recently,
when the story broke in Washington over the summer and Tasker was
summoned to a meeting with the British Ambassador in Washington,
according to Tasker’s website.