The project was intended to dam one of the region’s largest rivers，thus creating a massive lake behind it. The lake would，the critics claimed，not only displace an estimated 100，000 people from their homes，but would also flood productive farmland and destroy several rare plant and animal habitats. A number of important archaeological sites would also be lost. The largest community to be relocated was the indigenous First Nation people who had lived on and farmed the land for an estimated thousand years. A spokesman for the First Nation community said that the ‘true price‘ of hydroelectric power was ’misery and cruelty’。A press report said that whilst the First Nation would be unlikely to disrupt the building of the dam，it was highly likely that they would protest and also attempt to mobilise opinion in other parts of the world against the Giant Dam Project.

　　The board of R&M was fully aware of the controversy when it submitted its tender to build the dam. The finance director，Sally Grignard，had insisted on putting an amount into the tender for the management of ‘local risks’。 Sally was also responsible for the financing of the project for R&M. Although the client was expected to release money in several ‘interim payments’ as the various parts of the project were completed to strict time deadlines，she anticipated a number of working capital challenges for R&M，especially near the beginning where a number of early stage costs would need to be incurred. There would，she explained，also be financing issues in managing the cash flows to R&M’s many subcontractors. Although the major banks financed the client through a lending syndicate， R&M’s usual bank said it was wary of lending directly to R&M for the Giant Dam Project because of the potential negative publicity that might result. Another bank said it would provide R&M with its early stage working capital needs on the understanding that its involvement in financing R&M to undertake the Giant Dam Project was not disclosed. A press statement from Stop-the-dam said that it would do all it could to discover R&M’s financial lenders and publicly expose them. Sally told the R&M board that some debt financing would be essential until the first interim payments from the client became available.

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