Study: Costa Rica bribery allegations spread to Finland

Hospitals got unnecessary expensive equipment

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According to a fresh report by FinnWatch, an organisation that collects, analyses, and disseminates information about Finnish companies, the controversial export of hospital equipment to Costa Rica involves extensive bribery, which has spread to Finland as well.
      The affair involves a deal dating back to 2003 in which the Finnish company Instrumentarium sold nearly 40 million US dollars worth of hospital equipment to the Costa Rican public health institution. The equipment went to about 100 hospitals around the country.
      The Finnish government supported the deal by providing an interest-subsidised loan of 32 million dollars for the purchase.
      However, in the spring of 2004 reports emerged of bribery involving top Costa Rican officials and politicians, including the country's former President.
      According to the FinnWatch report, the goods sold were expensive devices for specialised health care that the hospitals in question did not actually need. The unnecessary equipment was sold with the help of bribery.
      The report emphasises that both Instrumentarium and its Costa Rican representative Fischel used Finnish development cooperation funding as a way to secure a lucrative deal, whose only beneficiaries were the companies themselves. Instrumentarium closed the deal a couple of weeks before it was bought by General Electric.
     
Fischel secured a commission of 8.8 million dollars for the contract - which is roughly the amount later deposited in the bank accounts of various civil servants and corporate executives.
      The suspicion is that Instrumentarium's partner Fischel bribed Costa Rica's ex president, in return for quick passage of the acquisition of hospital equipment in the country's Parliament.
      According to the report, rapid handling was necessary in December 2001, because the increasingly prosperous Costa Rica would no longer qualify for subsidised loans in 2002. The report also notes that the Finnish Foreign Ministry approved the deal, even though the consultants studying it had said that the equipment was unnecessarily expensive.
     
The report also criticises the fact that the Foreign Ministry spent such a long time pondering its responsibility in the manner.
      A study by an international analysis company commissioned by the ministry confirmed that the goods were unnecessary and overpriced. However, it was not until last month that the ministry asked the police to investigate the matter.
      The affair is now in the hands of the National Bureau of Investigation, which has asked for further clarification of the matter from Costa Rica.
      According to the FinnWatch report, the taxpayers of Costa Rica are ending up paying the bill for the hospital equipment affair, as Costa Rica must pay back the oversized loan.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Foreign Ministry requests police investigation of hospital equipment sale to Costa Rica (26.10.2005)
  Costa Rica bribery scandal involves Finnish company (25.10.2004)
  Foreign Ministry to investigate Instrumentarium deals in Costa Rica (23.9.2004)
  General Electric to acquire Instrumentarium (19.12.2002)

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