From The Financial Times
The World Bank board has bowed to pressure from the US Treasury to give Paul Wolfowitz more time to respond to findings that he broke the bank’s ethics rules, in a move directors hope will satisfy US concerns about due process.
In a statement issued late on Wednesday, the board said the bank president would have until close of business on Friday to make “final comments” on the draft findings of a panel that investigated his role in awarding a pay and promotion package to his girlfriend, Shaha Riza.
The panel will consider these comments, then complete its report and present it to the full board, probably on Monday. The statement said Mr Wolfowitz would also have the opportunity to appear in person before the board on Tuesday “to communicate his views in person, if he wishes to do so”.
The bank issued a three-page chronology of the work of the special panel in a bid to defend the process underway and show transparency following attacks by Mr Wolfowitz’s lawyer, Robert Bennett.
The Bush administration is expected to use the extra days to test whether it can muster enough support to save the bank president ahead of what is likely to be a decisive board meeting next Wednesday.
Pressure on the Bush administration from Congress intensified as leading Democratic senators urged President George W. Bush in a letter not to force a US vs Europe vote at the board.
“We do not believe the bank’s mission or US interests would be advanced by such a vote,” said the letter signed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Charles Schumer, Richard Durbin and Patty Murray.
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