World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz faced a fight for his political life yesterday after the development lender’s directors demolished his defense in a favoritism scandal surrounding his girlfriend.
As calls mounted for the former US deputy defense secretary to resign, the 24 executive directors issued a statement that left Wolfowitz squarely isolated heading into a weekend of high-level talks among global financial leaders.
After a day-long emergency meeting that stretched late into the night, the board detailed the findings of its investigation into the row over Wolfowitz’s Libyan-born partner, Shaha Riza.
More than 100 pages of documents released with the statement revealed that on Wolfowitz’s personal direction, Riza was given raises that took her annual pay package to nearly US$200,000 when she was reassigned from the World Bank to the US State Department.