World Bank panel 'leans' toward finding Wolfowitz guilty

WASHINGTON: A World Bank panel is "leaning" toward a conclusion that bank president Paul Wolfowitz violated bank rules when he helped engineer a promotion for his girlfriend, who was then a bank employee, the New York Times reported on Thursday.

The paper, citing unnamed World Bank officials, said the special investigatory committee would report its findings that Wolfowitz violated conflict-of-interest rules to the bank's 24-member board of directors by the end of the week.   

It added that Wolfowitz, who has insisted he acted in good faith, would then be under increased pressure to resign, a step he has so far refused.   

But the Times said it was not clear what the committee would recommend nor what action the board would take.   

Wolfowitz has been under fire since early April for his role in arranging a pay hike and promotion for his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, when she was seconded to the US State Department after he became bank president in June 2005.   

Wolfowitz has told the panel he acted on the advice of the bank's ethics committee in trying to resolve a potential conflict of interest between himself and Riza.   

But bank officials contend that he was never directed to personally order guaranteed promotions and a pay deal worth nearly 200,000 dollars for his Libyan-born companion.   

The lingering controversy is threatening to hobble the World Bank's traditional lending and development activities, notably an anti-corruption campaign targeting beneficiaries of bank assistance.   

The New York Times said officials in Germany, Spain, France, the Netherlands and the Nordic states have been signalling they would refuse to approve future donations to loans for some of the world's poorest countries as long as Wolfowitz remained in power.