Broken Promises: How Enron’s Corporate Imperialism Left India Powerless
Enron also epitomized the corporate imperialist doctrine of modern globalist economics by bullying their way into developing countries with large-scale infrastructure projects that fail to live up to shiny promises. Nothing spoke to this point like the 10-year, $3 billion liquefied natural gas power plant development project they initiated in India. The development began in 1992, near India’s financial capital of Bombay in Maharashtra state. The project was supposed to supply India with 2,000 megawatts of electricity, which recklessly outpaced both India’s power demands and budgetary restrictions. The main concern of the citizenry at the time was the high projected cost(s) of consumer energy in India but, despite the populist pressure, Enron leaned on political allies to evade mounting pressure from the people. In what is now known to be typical Enron fashion, multimillion-dollar bonuses were paid out to Enron executives on future profits that never manifested from the failed project. Sadly, the incomplete Dabhol project was placed on hold in June of 2001 and has produced a loss of over $1 billion to date without producing a single watt of energy for the Indian people.