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Wolfowitz proud of his time at World Bank
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The outgoing President of the World Bank Paul Wolfowitz has strongly
defended his time in office in an exclusive 91Èȱ¬ World Service interview and claimed that his resignation came about
due to emotions becoming overheated.
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Mr Wolfowitz resigned earlier this month after just two years in the
post.
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Commenting on the scandal regarding his the promotion and salary of his
girlfriend, Shaha Riza, Mr Wolfowitz told the Newshour programme: "I'm
pleased that finally the board did accept that I acted in good faith and
acted ethically and I accept the fact that by the time we got around to
that, emotions here were so overheated that I don't think I could have
accomplished what I wanted to accomplish for the people I really care
about."
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When asked about his relationship with the bank and the calls from
current and former bank staff for him to go, he said: "I think it tells
us more about the media than about the bank and I'll leave it at that.
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"People were reacting to a whole string of inaccurate statements and by
the time we got to anything approximating accuracy the passions were around the bend."
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He spoke of any damage to the bank's reputation: "Hopefully people will
look at some of the governance issues here and the human resources issues
here and it could be a stronger place, it should be a stronger place.
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"This kind of experience actually exposes problems but you don't solve
problems unless you expose them."
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Mr Wolfowitz also discussed the appointment of his successor and whether
that person should be American.
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He said: "I do think something needs to be done
about the under-representation of African countries... I think if we're
going to take African voices seriously, then there need to be more of
them, there also needs to be a much more concerted effort to increase the
African voices in the bank's staff."
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He highlighted concerns about the support for his anti-corruption
policies: "People were much more comfortable talking about it than
actually confronting the consequences of problems."
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"Frankly the most inspired people, and the ones most easily convinced,
happen to be the ones that are out there working in country offices.
There's something that's a little enervating, to be charitable about it,
about being in these wonderful comfortable conditions in Washington," he
said in a wider comment about his strategies at the bank.
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When asked if he had any regrets he said: "Oh, probably a couple, but
right now I feel pretty good."
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About writing his resignation statement, he said: "Somebody said this is a
very long statement and I said, 'Well it's true but there's actually a
lot we've accomplished'.
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"And I feel very proud of that, very satisfied
about that and ready to go on and do other things."
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Notes to Editors
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Paul Wolfowitz was speaking to Claire Bolderson on 91Èȱ¬ World Service for
Newshour.
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91Èȱ¬ World Service will broadcast the full interview at 1300 BST (1200
GMT) on Monday 28 May 2007 on Newshour.
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The interview will be available to listen
to online at bbc.co.uk/worldservice after broadcast.
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91Èȱ¬ World Service Press Office
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