Wednesday, December 26, 2018

"It Doesn’t Matter if Ecuador Can Afford This Dam. China Still Gets Paid"

NYT:
only two years after opening, thousands of cracks are splintering the dam’s machinery. Its reservoir is clogged with silt, sand and trees. And the only time engineers tried to throttle up the facility completely, it shook violently and shorted out the national electricity grid.

This giant dam in the jungle, financed and built by China, was supposed to christen Ecuador’s vast ambitions, solve its energy needs and help lift the small South American country out of poverty.

Instead, it has become part of a national scandal engulfing the country in corruption, perilous amounts of debt — and a future tethered to China.

...

Nearly every top Ecuadorean official involved in the dam’s construction is either imprisoned or sentenced on bribery charges