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By Nathaniel Harrison
WASHINGTON: Embattled World Bank
President Paul Wolfowitz, under fire for his role in the promotion
of his girlfriend, was to join a policy meeting Sunday in what could
be one of his last official acts as bank chief.
Facing calls for his resignation,
Wolfowitz was also scheduled to appear at a press conference
following the twice-yearly session of the bank’s policy-setting
Development Committee, representing the lender’s 185 members.
After a tempestuous two-year
tenure at the Washington-based development body, Wolfowitz is now
under siege from bank staffers and advocacy groups who want him to
go.
He stands accused of helping
arrange a hefty pay hike for his partner, former World Bank
communications specialist Shaha Riza, when she was transferred to
the US State Department in 2005.
Wolfowitz, a former US defense
department deputy and architect of the Iraq War, has admitted
to—and apologized for—mistakes in the procedure under which the
pay package was approved.
He has said he will abide by a
decision on his fate that is to be taken by the bank’s 24-member
executive board.
British development minister
Hilary Benn said Saturday that the pay scandal had done “damage”
to the bank and should never have occurred.
“While this whole business has
damaged the bank and should not have happened, we should respect the
board process,” he said in a statement as he prepared to take part
in weekend talks at both the bank and the International Monetary
Fund.
“This weekend ought to be about
the bank’s contribution to fighting poverty and I am looking
forward to discussing how we can increase aid, tackle climate
change, and get clean water to the 1 billion human beings who
don’t have any,” Benn said.
The controversy swirling around
Wolfowitz threatens to undermine his high-profile campaign to
stamp out corruption in countries receiving World Bank loans, an
initiative that had drawn sharp criticism even before the
allegations of favoritism emerged.
Wolfowitz last month hailed
unanimous support from national representatives on the bank
executive board for the campaign, which has had to be repeatedly
watered down in the face of virulent opposition.
But the criticism has not gone
away and was likely to be aired again by policymakers on Sunday.
“How can the World Bank talk
about governance when its president broke international legality
with the Iraq war?” Mexican officials asked during a consultation
process late last year, according to documents posted on the bank
website.
That consultation was
commissioned after a September meeting of the bank and IMF, in
Singapore, when major European powers such as Britain lined up with
developing nations to assail Wolfowitz’s strategy as misguided.
In going after graft, the World
Bank risked jeopardizing its development work among some of the
planet’s most needy people, they argued.
Another area currently of deep
concern to policy planners is the future of the International
Development Association (IDA)—the World Bank’s lending arm for
the poorest countries—as it seeks to replenish its coffers to help
fund debt-relief promises.
Officials from the World Bank and
developed and developing nations met in Paris in early March to
boost IDA resources.
 --AFP
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