The Chinese state-owned company which is set to conduct a €4 million study on the feasibility of a bridge between Malta and Gozo had been blacklisted by the World Bank for fraudulent practices in the Philippines.

Last Friday, the China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) and the Maltese government signed a memorandum of understanding on the study, which will be funded by the Chinese company itself. According to Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, the agreement does not oblige the government to engage CCCC if the bridge is found to be a feasible option.

The company is set to remain on the World Bank’s blacklist until 12 January, 2017: in the meantime, it is ineligible to engage in any road or bridge projects financed by the World Bank Group. The debarment may be reduced or terminated next year, but only if a compliance programme satisfactory to the World Bank is put in place.

The sanction was originally handed down to the China Road and Bridge Corporation on 12 January 2009, and concerns alleged collusion in the bidding for a World Bank-financed road project in the Philippines in 2002. Similar sanctions also applied to six other companies and an individual.

The World Bank’s allegations were strongly denied by the CCCC, which was formed in 2006 out of a merger between the CRBC and China Harbour Engineering Co. The latter is the successor of the company that built the Red China Dock in Cottonera.

But this did not affect the World Bank’s ruling, and on 29 July, 2011, the sanction which was handed down to the CRBC was formally applied to the CCCC as the successor organisation.

Coincidentally, the Labour Party in opposition had emphasised the World Bank’s sanctioning of another company involved in a controversial contract: that of the Delimara power station.

It had criticised the government’s decision to commission Lahmeyer International as an independent consultant tasked with assessing the bids for that contract, which was won by BWSC.