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Mulford mooted.
We have received a strong plug for David Mulford, currently U.S. ambassador to India. The e-mail, which reached us from someone who has “worked at the World Bank and seen Mulford in operation while working at the Treasury”, argues that “Mulford is without doubt better qualified for the job than virtually all of the people on your current list--including John Taylor whom you seem to tout as the current front runner”. In the 1980s, at the height of the Reaganite structural adjustment era, Mulford used to occupy the position that Taylor now holds in the U.S. Treasury. Prior to that, Mulford was Chairman International of Credit Suisse First Boston, based in London. From 1992 to 2003, Dr. Mulford was responsible for leading Credit Suisse First Boston's worldwide, large-scale privatisation business and other corporate and government advisory assignments. In this capacity he would have benefited personally from the controversial wave of privatisation overseen by the World Bank in many developing countries. Indeed Mulford is subject of a judicial investigation in Argentina because of his part in arranging a swap of $29.5 billion of old Argentine government bonds in 2001. An article in Euromoney magazine records that Argentinian parliamentarian Mario Cafiero has filed a case in the Argentine federal court alleging that then president Domingo Cavallo and other government officials met investment bank officers just before the debt swap to alter its terms to secure an additional profit of around $150 million, in addition to the official commission. In April 2004 the Argentinian court agreed to undertake further investigations of this matter. Our anonymous e-mail correspondent does not mention this episode and instead attempts to trumpet Mulford’s positive development credentials: “early in his career he spent considerable time in Zambia researching a thesis on Zambian independence”. They conclude “I have no doubt that he has the stature, ability and sensitivity to be an excellent leader of the Bank”. However, one old-time Bank-watcher in Washington I spoke to yesterday strongly disagreed. He said that Mulford had a poor reputation among colleagues when at the U.S. Treasury in the 1980s and made an unsuccessful bid for the Bank presidency in 1986. My contact's conclusion: Mulford is not a sufficiently heavyweight political figure to be given the Bank job now. Nancy Kassebaum-Baker is a much more likely bet, according to my source. Alex Wilks ~ February 08, 2005
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