Cleaning up Cesspools
April 25th 2007 02:08
If I thought there was a slow momentum building up, a sliver of support for the embattled President of World Bank Wolfowitz, the Economist comes up with a disgraceful article which actually details the kind of abuse he is getting there:
In their rage, the staff have shed all deference and discretion. Some heckled their president to his face in the vast atrium of the bank's headquarters; others have written to bank directors urging them to seek his resignation. One of his two deputies, Graeme Wheeler, has
reportedly advised him to jump, and other senior staff are considering leaving if he doesn't.
The rag calls this a decline in morale of the Wolrd Bank staff !
And it also with barefacedly details the campaign against him :
Why did the bank's people desert their boss so dramatically? Some insiders have known for a while that Ms Riza left on cushy terms. In January 2006, a whistleblower calling himself “John Smith” sent an e-mail to the bank's directors, complaining about the $180,000 salary the bank was paying her in her new job at the State Department. The board's ethics committee looked into it, and found the e-mails told them nothing new. Mr Smith warned them of a “trial by the media” if they did not act. Sure enough, the Washington Post last month reported that Ms Riza was now getting $193,590, more than the secretary of state. Disgruntled staff finally had the tip of a spear they had wanted to throw at Mr Wolfowitz for some time.
So, someone actually threatened a "trial by media" and actually giving Wolfowitz one and the Economist still doesn't seem to find anything wrong in it.
Is it payback for Paul Wolfowitz's role in Iraq? The mag says the reasons are more subtle than that:
He came to the bank tainted by his role as a champion of the Iraq war. Opposition to the war, he still thinks, explains much of the hostility to him. “For people who disagree with things they associate with me in my previous job,” he said on April 12th, “I am not in my previous job.”
The truth is perhaps more subtle. Some of the bank's professionals complain that he is too secure in his own insights, unimpressed by the accumulated wisdom of the institution. That intellectual temperament may explain both his enthusiasm for invading Iraq and his lack of support in an institution that prides itself on its expertise. Moreover, if Mr Wolfowitz entered the bank expecting to fight his corner against a staunchly anti-war staff, his expectation may have been self-fulfilling. Certainly his underlings dislike the sectarian style Mr Wolfowitz seems to share with the man who appointed him.
So, his fault is he too secure in his own insights. Meaning he came to fight corruption in the Bank and he is doing that and not bowing to the mandarin's diktats and that's the cause of the heartburn.
And why all the heartburn? The Economist indicates that:
According to leaked e-mails, Juan José Daboub, a former conservative finance minister of El Salvador named last year as the bank's managing director, last month ordered that all reference to family planning be expunged from the bank's aid strategy for Madagascar. This is a country where, the bank said in 2004, the use of modern contraceptives is stagnant and sexually transmitted disease abounds. “I am biting my tongue to avoid saying something impolitic,” a bank official wrote at the time.
So, if a "conservative" minister acts on his conservative comvictions that's a problem. After all this is a neo-liberal organization that is designed to promote neo-liberal policies.
For the record, I do not agree with those anti-contraceptive views. But, that is why I think undemocratic organizations like the World Bank should not have so much money and so much power at their disposal either.
As the Economist puts it ,"The world's poor, judged by its $1-a-day yardstick, now number fewer than 1 billion, down by over 250m since 1990." What happened since 1990? Maybe its that dread thing called globalization. This actually shows that the institutions like the World Bank are threat to poverty eradication.
More power to you Mr. Wolfowitz!
In their rage, the staff have shed all deference and discretion. Some heckled their president to his face in the vast atrium of the bank's headquarters; others have written to bank directors urging them to seek his resignation. One of his two deputies, Graeme Wheeler, has
The rag calls this a decline in morale of the Wolrd Bank staff !
And it also with barefacedly details the campaign against him :
Why did the bank's people desert their boss so dramatically? Some insiders have known for a while that Ms Riza left on cushy terms. In January 2006, a whistleblower calling himself “John Smith” sent an e-mail to the bank's directors, complaining about the $180,000 salary the bank was paying her in her new job at the State Department. The board's ethics committee looked into it, and found the e-mails told them nothing new. Mr Smith warned them of a “trial by the media” if they did not act. Sure enough, the Washington Post last month reported that Ms Riza was now getting $193,590, more than the secretary of state. Disgruntled staff finally had the tip of a spear they had wanted to throw at Mr Wolfowitz for some time.
So, someone actually threatened a "trial by media" and actually giving Wolfowitz one and the Economist still doesn't seem to find anything wrong in it.
He came to the bank tainted by his role as a champion of the Iraq war. Opposition to the war, he still thinks, explains much of the hostility to him. “For people who disagree with things they associate with me in my previous job,” he said on April 12th, “I am not in my previous job.”
The truth is perhaps more subtle. Some of the bank's professionals complain that he is too secure in his own insights, unimpressed by the accumulated wisdom of the institution. That intellectual temperament may explain both his enthusiasm for invading Iraq and his lack of support in an institution that prides itself on its expertise. Moreover, if Mr Wolfowitz entered the bank expecting to fight his corner against a staunchly anti-war staff, his expectation may have been self-fulfilling. Certainly his underlings dislike the sectarian style Mr Wolfowitz seems to share with the man who appointed him.
So, his fault is he too secure in his own insights. Meaning he came to fight corruption in the Bank and he is doing that and not bowing to the mandarin's diktats and that's the cause of the heartburn.
And why all the heartburn? The Economist indicates that:
According to leaked e-mails, Juan José Daboub, a former conservative finance minister of El Salvador named last year as the bank's managing director, last month ordered that all reference to family planning be expunged from the bank's aid strategy for Madagascar. This is a country where, the bank said in 2004, the use of modern contraceptives is stagnant and sexually transmitted disease abounds. “I am biting my tongue to avoid saying something impolitic,” a bank official wrote at the time.
So, if a "conservative" minister acts on his conservative comvictions that's a problem. After all this is a neo-liberal organization that is designed to promote neo-liberal policies.
For the record, I do not agree with those anti-contraceptive views. But, that is why I think undemocratic organizations like the World Bank should not have so much money and so much power at their disposal either.
As the Economist puts it ,"The world's poor, judged by its $1-a-day yardstick, now number fewer than 1 billion, down by over 250m since 1990." What happened since 1990? Maybe its that dread thing called globalization. This actually shows that the institutions like the World Bank are threat to poverty eradication.
More power to you Mr. Wolfowitz!
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