LONDON: Outgoing World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz on Monday strongly defended his time in office and said he was forced to quit as emotions had got out of control over his girlfriend's promotion.
Claiming that he acted in good faith and acted ethically, Wolfowitz said he was proud of his achievements and had few regrets.
Wolfowitz is to step down on June 30 in the 'best interests' of the bank following weeks of furore over the generous pay and promotion package he arranged for his girlfriend Shaha Riza, a bank employee.
"I'm pleased that finally the board did accept that I acted in good faith and acted ethically and I accept the fact that by the time we got around to that, emotions in Washington were so overheated that I don't think I could have accomplished what I wanted to accomplish for the people I really care about," he told BBC World Service commenting on the scandal.
When asked about his relationship with the Bank and the calls from current and former bank staff for him to go, he said, "I think it tells us more about the media than about the bank and I'll leave it at that. People were reacting to a whole string of inaccurate statements and by the time we got to anything approximating accuracy the passions were around the bend."
Asked whether there was any damage to the Bank's reputation, Wolfowitz said, "Hopefully people will look at some of the governance issues here and the human resources issues here and it could be a stronger place, it should be a stronger place. This kind of experience, actually exposes problems but you don't solve problems unless you expose them."
