THE DAULE PERIPA PROJECT Italy’s responsibilities in Ecuador’s illegitimate debt

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This report is based on the information published in the Executive Summary of the report drawn by Ecuador’s Public Debt Audit Commission (Comisión para la Auditoría Integral del Crédito Público, CAIC) as well as on other information gathered during a mission in Ecuador organised in July 2008 by the Campagna per la Riforma della Banca Mondiale (Campaign for the Reform of the World Bank, CRBM) and the Legal Advice Centre for Afro descendants and indigenous people (CLAI) in order to evaluate the social and environmental impacts of the Daule Peripa dam and the associated Italian-funded Marcel Laniado De Wind hydropower plant.

Almost 30 years after the building of these two big structures, almost fifty thousand people, most of whom have become isolated inside the artificial basin created by the Daule Peripa dam, still suffer the consequences. Unfortunately, they still have not received any form of compensation.

The CAIC analysed the debt derived from the international loans granted to finance this project and found that it had cost the Ecuadorian government much more than expected; what is more, objectives have not been fulfilled and the actual power generation capacity is much lower than its estimated value. After 14 months’ work, the CAIC found evidence of illegitimacy and illegality in the credit granted for the building of this colossal infrastructure, including the bilateral debt owed to the Italian government for the construction of the Marcel Laniado De Wind hydroelectric plant.

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