DNA Special
NEW DELHI: Paul Wolfowitz, the World Bank president at the centre of a raging controversy over favouritism towards his girlfriend, was combative on the issue from very early in 2005 and was angry with the way the bank institutions handled the entire affair, according to internal documents accessed by DNA.
The Bush loyalist and the Iraq war strategist did not put much trust in the Bank’s systems though they later became his tools on many occasions to stop major funding projects, including some to India.
A series of communications at the highest levels of the World Bank — on the issue of Wolfowitz’s girlfriend Shaha Riza continuing to work at the bank after he became the president— show from very early he had clashed with the Bank’s Ethics Committee.
Once his initial efforts to retain Riza at the Bank failed, Wolfowitz bullied the human resources department into providing her a huge hike, and promotion as she was seconded to the US State Department.
DNA is in possession of a series of communications between Wolfowitz, Ad Melkert, then chairman of the Bank’s Ethics Committee, Xavier Coll, Vice President (human resources) and Wolfowitz’s partner and senior World Bank official Shaha Riza.
The communications reveal Wolfowitz was from the very beginning on a combative mood, and was unhappy with Bank’s Ethics Committee. His initial suggestion to “avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest” was that he be allowed recusal from “any personal actions or decision with respect to a longstanding professional member of the Bank with whom it has been reported that I have a prior personal relationship.”
This was a letter on July 21, 2005 from the new World Bank president to Ethics Committee chairman Ad Melkert who is presently the Associate Administrator of the UN Development Program.
In early August 2005, the Bank’s Ethics Committee rejected Wolfowitz request to let Riza continue in the bank.
Once he was forced to give into the Ethics Committee recommendations, to post her out of the Bank, Wolfowitz began to push aggressively for a massive pay hike for his girlfriend. In a communication to Xavier Coll, the VP (HR), Wolfowitz orders: “I direct you to provide her a choice between her proposal and your alternative of financial compensation” in lieu of promotion, for her moving out.
The HR department had to implement Wolfowitz’s recommendations in full: That his girlfriend be promoted to H level in the bank and given an annual package of $1,93,000. Her salary rose from $1,32,000.
