S2 Dénivellation de huit carrefours à Sfax

Complaint

In March 2021, the EIB Group Complaints Mechanism (EIB-CM) received a complaint from the majority shareholder of a company alleging that the EIB-financed “S2 Dénivellation de huit carrefours à Sfax” project had negatively affected the company's business.

The complaint claims:

1.           lack of compensation for financial losses caused by construction activities related to the project and loss of earning resulting from the project;

2.           lack of consultation and adequate information on the project and its impact, including an appropriate grievance redress mechanism at the project level.

Initial assessment

During the initial assessment the EIB-CM: (i) had an initial meeting with the EIB services; (ii) had an initial meeting with the complainant ; (iii) had an initial meeting with the promoter; (iv) reviewed EIB documents; (v) requested and received information from the promoter.

The EIB-CM assessed the possibility of conducting an amicable dispute resolution process. However, the promoter’s representative argued that an amicable resolution was impossible due to the Tunisian legal framework. For this reason, the EIB-CM carried an investigation/compliance review.
 

Compliance review

The EIB-CM performed its compliance review and found the first allegation to be justified given that the complainant did not receive compensation despite being entitled to a compensation by the promoter according to the EIB E&S Standards and the Resettlement Action Plan. The second allegation was found to be only partly justified at the start of the construction works but not at the time of lodging the complaint after actions being taken by the Bank and the promoter to increase stakeholder engagement and improve the grievance mechanism.

The CM found no maladministration since the Bank had identified the risks of impacts on shop-owners at appraisal, requested a Resettlement Action Plan (RAP) that would cover these impacts, reviewed the RAP, and performed active monitoring in relation to the lack of compensation of shop owners after becoming aware of the issue. Among others, the Bank contributed indirectly to the improvement of the national legal framework related to expropriation with a view to allow the compensation of such impacts in the nearby future.
 

Outcome

Given that the complainant has received no compensation so far and the shortcomings identified in the RAP and its implementation, the EIB-CM issued a number of suggestions and agreed actions to the Bank. These are the following :

1. That the Bank E&S procedures under revision and/or a Guidance note to staff on involuntary resettlement clarify: i) the level of critical review of the RAP expected by the Bank project team as well as the level of consultation with the promoter and other institutional actors in terms of RAP quality, institutional framework and monitoring of implementation; and ii) the level of required analysis by the Bank and conditions that trigger the need to implement requirements of paragraph 62 of the EIB  E&S standard 6 (version of 2022).
2. Maintain conditions precedent in view of the third disbursement and monitor priority actions referred to in paragraph 6.2.x of the conclusions report in support of greater coordination between institutional actors to allow for a timely implementation of the amended expropriation law and treatment of the complainant’s case.
3. Monitor the implementation of : i) consultations and communications by the promoter to the affected shop-owners about the amended expropriation law and new modalities to achieve compensation, and ii) measures proposed by the promoter to improve accessibility and visibility of the complainant’s shop.
4. Renew the technical assistance provided to the promoter to further reinforce its E&S capacities and management.

The implementation of these suggestions and agreed actions will be followed up by the EIB-CM.