Monday, April 16, 2007

The World Bank Fiasco

I hold my hands up to mistakenly saying on Friday, with confidence, that Paul Wolfowitz would be out of his job as president of the World Bank by the end of the day.

Monday morning, and he is still there vowing to stay on.

However, whilst I may have got the timing of his departure wrong, I am confident that his position is now untenable and he will soon be gone.

Unfortunately for the World Bank, and those hapless impoverished nations that rely on it, Wolfowitz's dogged determination to stay on and the rancour and negative publicity that this pig headedness is causing does the institution and those that it serves no good whatsoever.

The final nails in the coffin of Wolfowitz's career were driven in on Sunday, when the oversight committee of the bank delivered a public rebuke of his leadership, expressing "great concern" about the institution's future and the need to preserve its credibility and staff morale.

In simple terms, they want him to fall on his sword and go.

Unfortunately, Wolfowitz just doesn't seem to get it; he is working under the delusion that it is alright for him to act outwith the ethical requirements of the bank in the time honoured tradition of "do as I say, not as I do". He is also naively trying to ride the storm out.

The simple fact is that this storm will not die down, the European countries that contribute to the funding of the bank (such as the UK) want him gone. His only support comes from his friends President Bush and Dick Cheney, as the old saying goes "with friends like those..."

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