In May, Tanzania entered into a 30-year concession agreement with Adani Ports, a unit of Adani Group, to operate a container terminal in its Dar es Salaam port, known as Container Terminal 2. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

“Tanzania plans to honour its contracts with an Adani Group unit despite a U.S. indictment of its billionaire chairman Gautam Adani on accusations of bribery and fraud,” a senior official at the ports authority said.

Mr. Adani was indicted for fraud last week, and arrest warrants were issued for him and his nephew for their alleged roles in a $265 million scheme to bribe the officials to secure power-supply deals. Adani Group has denied the accusations.

In May, Tanzania entered into a 30-year concession agreement with Adani Ports, a unit of Adani Group, to operate a container terminal in its Dar es Salaam port, known as Container Terminal 2.

Adani Ports also struck a share purchase agreement for a 95% stake in state-owned Tanzania International Container Terminal Services for $95 million.

“We don’t have any problems with anyone. Everything we are doing is according to our laws and agreements,” Tanzania Ports Authority Director General Plasduce Mbossa told Reuters late on Tuesday (November 26, 2024) when asked about the contracts’ status.

“For contracts we have, we don’t have such claims (of wrongdoing). If there are other people who are taking actions, then they are doing so according to their reasons,” Plasduce Mbossa added.

Last week in neighbouring Kenya, President William Ruto scrapped a deal signed with a unit of Adani to build power transmission lines.

He also cancelled a proposal to add a second runway at the Jomo Kenyatta international airport and upgrade the passenger terminal in exchange for a 30-year lease.

Indian billionaire Gautam Adani.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

A U.S. court indicted billionaire Gautam Adani and seven others including his nephew Sagar and three other executives on charges of fraud and bribery. The case pertained to a deal between Adani Green Energy and a U.S. seller for 12 gigawatts of solar power to be sold to various States. The charges came on a day when the firm planned a green bond launch in the US. The Adani subsidiary eventually cancelled the sale.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged Mr. Adani, founder and chairman of the Adani Group, with allegedly defrauding American investors and bribing officials. The SEC alleged that the bribery scheme was orchestrated to enable renewable energy companies Adani Green and Azure Power to capitalise on a multi-billion-dollar solar energy project awarded by the Indian government. The complaint charges them with violating the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws and seeks permanent injunctions, civil penalties, and officer and director bars.

Adani’s stocks nosedived as reports of a possible arrest of one of India’s richest businessmen loomed large. The Congress, which has repeatedly sought a JPC probe into the “Adani Mega Scam,” said its stand has been vindicated. The BJP, however, questioned the timing of the indictment.

This is not the first time Mr. Adani is facing a legal tussle overseas. There are at least six other deals such as the Carmichael coal mine project in Australia, and Sri Lanka’s windpower project.

U.S.-based short-seller Hindenburg Research in 2023 accused the Adani conglomerate of improper extensive use of entities set up in offshore tax havens and expressed concern about high debt levels. It followed up with another report this year alleging that SEBI chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch and her husband had undisclosed investments in obscure offshore funds in Bermuda and Mauritius, the same entities allegedly used by Vinod Adani to round-trip funds and inflate stock prices.