Brazilian Businessman Fails To Comply With Licenses And Is Expelled

Brazilian businessman fails to comply with licenses and is expelled

From Bolivia

26th April /2006

São Paulo - SP
Source: Amazonia.org.br
Link: http://www.amazonia.org.br/

Santa Cruz Forest might have been turned into charcoal, businessman used blackmailed by making job offers.

The Brazilian businessman Eike Batista, owner of the company EBX, is today the center of attention in Bolivia, as he has been considered a 'persona non grata' by the president of the country, Evo Morales.

This was in light of the pressure he exerted to obtain environmental licensing for the charcoal-fed blast furnaces to process pig iron, that he illegally built on the border with Brazil.

Charges made by the Bolivian Forum on the Environment and Development (Fobomade) state that EBX is already concluding the construction of a power plant in Puerto Quijarro, without environmental licensing, in violation of legislation.

The plant, with its furnaces to produce pig iron, will use charcoal taken from the Bolivian Pantanal wetlands. EBX maintains that it will use 450,000 tons of charcoal from native forests. According to calculations from the Forest Directorate and EBX itself, the entire Bolivian Pantanal would have to be deforested during the initial phases, as well as Germán Busch province, if not the entire native forest of the Department of Santa Cruz, at a rate of 12,750 hectares per year. Later, the company proposes planting eucalyptus in one of the tropical regions most important to the ecological equilibrium of the planet.

Reacting to what he considers "pressure from the Bolivian government", the businessman Eike Batista spoke yesterday to the Brazilian newspaper, Valor Economico, saying that he had "promised mayors and community leaders in Puerto Suárez, Puerto Quijarra and Germán Busch, to wait until Friday the 28th, to announce a definitive decision." And, as pointed out by the newspaper, he considers himself a victim. "if they don't want me, I'll leave. I'll go home", he said in Spanish. The same newspaper today confirmed EBX's departure from Bolivia. It says that Eike Batista will seek alternative locations in Brazil and Paraguay.

The old line about jobs

Eike Batista argues that, if he has to definitely abandon the project, Bolivia could lose six thousand potential jobs, a US$148 million metalworking plant and a US$180 million steel plant. He also added a claim as to the benefit of reforestation using eucalyptus. Nevertheless, the Bolivian social movements point out that the discourse about employment hides the fact that, once the work is concluded, all of the bricklayers will be fired anyway. Moreover, alleges Fobomade, "he hides information on the small amount of jobs created by this type of industry, where the only increase in employment necessary will be in felling of trees.

Energy Baron

Since 1983, Eike Batista, the "energy baron", has participated in different projects through the business group that includes MPX (energy), AMX (water resources: he has announced the discovery of water in the Atacama desert - which will be used in copper mines) and MMX (steel).

In 2006, Eike Batista was dubbed by the international press as a speculator, due to a scandal involving the Ceará Thermo Power Plant, a Brazilian thermoelectric power plant that obtained an unscrupulous contract with President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and which included a clause entitled "contingent contribution" by which Petrobras paid all of the company's investment costs each month without receiving anything in return.

On February 16, 2005, the company MPX (association of EBX and MDU from the US) was fined the amount of R$2,986 million for presenting false information to Aneel. The fine had been issued in July 2004, but an appeal filed by EBX delayed the disclosure of the investigations.

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