As reported by Deep Insider, Monique Barbut was practising some “travails” to get the “dragon-lady” Robin a cushy job at GEF. Guess with only 18 months to go for the Bush Administration, his political followers are not welcomed, as ” must have employees “, with open arms in some corporations and dear Robyn does need a job. However, according to Al Kamen from Washington Post, Robin won’t be an ilk of Monique.
“The job apparently would have meant a two-step demotion in rank as well as a substantial — perhaps six-figure — decline in salary, according to the Government Accountability Project, which has been exposing various misdeeds and shortcomings at the bank.”
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Nominations for World Bank president close today, and barring a miracle, it will be a one horse race.
In Norway yesterday, Zoellick met with development minister Erik Solheim: “The Norwegian principled position is that this should be an open competition where everyone should be able to run – Chinese, Argentinian, whatever, Norwegian for that matter. We will work with other governments to make such a procedure for future presidential appointments of the World Bank. That said, we think this is a very good proposal of Mr Zoellick as the new president of the World Bank.” Solheim also said that Europe’s prerogative to choose the head of the IMF should also be abandoned. more…
June 14th 2007 | Jeff Powell | More on The Process | Comments Off
Liberal Democrat shadow international development secretary, Lynne Featherstone MP, has written to chancellor Gordon Brown and development secretary Hilary Benn calling on the British government to nominate another candidate or “failing that, to instruct the executive director on the board of the World Bank not to support the nomination”. more…
Amid reports that the Volker Panel’s audit of Suzanne Rich Folsom’s INT is likely to be a whitewash, the Government Accountability Project is doing its own audit. more…
June 14th 2007 | Jeff Powell | More on The Process | Comments Off
While it does require some grasp of British geography, a comment by David Woodward in the Guardian brilliantly highlights the absurdity of the leadership selection process and the governance structures of the Bank.
June 14th 2007 | Jeff Powell | More on Zoellick | Comments Off
In London on Monday, Zoellick sidestepped questions on whether the US should retain the right to annoint the head of the Bank. The FT reports that when asked if he was likely to do a Wolfowitz by bringing in his own people to key positions in the Bank, he quipped: “I don’t have people. I have two cats and two rabbits.” Which does raise the question of whether they would be better qualified than some of the Wolfowitz appointees. more…
Now that disgraced about-to-be-former World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz is about to draw his next-to-last paycheck from the World Bank, you’d expect that the cronies that helped him crash and burn would be planning their own departures.
Not so for “the other woman” Robin Cleveland, whose imperious and superficial role as Senior Counsellor (and whose rich pay of $275,000 tax-free dollars was a damn sight better than what she pulled down as a “third level official” at OMB) is scheming to join the Global Environment Facility. Or “burrowing in” as they say in the US government.
Robin is conniving with Monique Barbut, the lovely and charmant Chief Executive of the enormous global fund for the environment that is housed in the Bank “investing in our planet”, to keep her excessive and unwarranted salary for another two years as a “team leader”
Have neither of them any shame? more…
In May, Washington-based thinktank the Center for Global Development launched an online survey about the selection process, criteria for rating candidates, and ratings for nine candidates chosen by their staff from names put forward in the international media. Over 700 responses were received and now the results are in. more…
June 11th 2007 | Sameer Dossani | More on Wolfowitz | 1 Comment
In this insightful Salon.com piece on Bush administration figures who’ve written in support of former Cheney advisor Lewis “Scooter” Libby (you have to go through their ‘click on sponsor’ page), Sydney Blumenthal offers this damning insight on the lengthiest of those letters of support, written by World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz: more…
June 10th 2007 | Jeff Powell | More on Zoellick | 4 Comments
South African newspapers have been remarkably quiet about the Zoellick visit over the weekend. This from the Sunday Times: more…
