Balfour Beatty has become embroiled in a row over the funding of the controversial Ilisu dam in Turkey. The UK’s International Development Committee released a report saying that the government should not back an application by Balfour Beatty for £220M ($334 million) of export credit guarantees, which will cover its part of an international consortium building the dam. The cross-party committee of MPs said that, from the outset, Ilisu had contravened international standards and that it was astonished the Foreign Office had not considered the impact on those living in the region.
The government insisted that it has considered human rights and that the Committee was ‘plainly wrong’. Commenting on the issue Richard Caborn of the trade and industry ministry said, “If Turkey uses the OECD standard on resettlement we will support the project”. The government will not make a decision until a full environmental impact report is released.
