While large-scale corruption in Indian health sector projects funded by the World Bank and pointed out by its Department of Institutional Integrity is yet to result in any prosecutions of ‘tainted’ officials and ministers, a US district court on Monday sentenced an Indian national and former World Bank employee, Ramendra Basu, to 15 months in prison for kickbacks in the Bank’s development project contracts in Ethiopia and Kenya.Between 1997 and 2000, Basu was functioning as a World Bank Trust Funds manager and had conspired with a Swedish consultant to steer the Bank’s contracts to some Swedish companies, in exchange for kickbacks.He had even assisted the Swedish consultants in transferring $50,000 to a senior Kenyan Government official.Basu was not alone and his co-conspirator was another Indian, former World Bank task manager Gautam Sengupta. Both Basu and Sengupta are Indian nationals. Sengupta had pleaded guilty in February 2002 and was sentenced in February 2006. Basu, on the other hand, had originally co-operated with the US and Swedish authorities, but then tried to move away from his ‘guilty’ plea unsuccessfully.Finally, he admitted to receiving kickbacks amounting to $127,000 and was booked for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Apart from 15 months in prison, Basu will face two years of “supervised release” and will have to do 50 hours of community service. The Government of Sweden has already prosecuted and convicted the consultants.
