Artigo publicado no jornal holandês de Volkskrant pela correspondente na América latina Jornalista Marjolein Van de Water e traduzido para o inglês.
Brazil refuses 40 million to Dutch dredging company
By: Marjolein van de Water − 28/11/13
The Dutch dredging company Van Oord is embroiled in a conflict with Brazil about an arrear in payment of forty million Euros. If the Brazilians continue to refuse to transfer the money, the debt will be paid from the Dutch state coffer.
‘I consider the chance of a quick resolution to this conflict small’, says Kees Rade, the Dutch ambassador to Brazil.
Van Oord waits since February for payment for a dredging job in Suape, a port in the northeast of Brazil. Of the 70 million only 30 million has been paid. The federal government accuses the port of financial mismanagement and errors in the tender. It refuses to pay a second part and also considers recovering its first payment.
The dredging company took an insurance against default with Atradius DSB, who issues export credit insurances on behalf of the Dutch state. The Hague tries to move the Brazilians to pay, but so far without result.
Fishermen lost their livelihoods
The development of the port in Brazil is accompanies by human rights violations and leaves local fishermen without livelihoods. Originations like Both ENDS and SOMO consider it therefore unacceptable that the Dutch tax payer possibly will end up paying for this debt. They indicate in a recent report that Atradius DSB only is allowed to insure projects that have ‘no unacceptable social and ecological impacts’.
Fisherman Enaldo Rodrigues on his boat
Maria José da Silva and her 6 children
A dredging vessel of Van Oord (right)
