World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz said on Monday he accepted full responsibility for the promotion of a staffer with whom he is romantically involved. The bank's staff association last week questioned Shaha Riza's promotion and pay increases, and the bank's board said on Friday they would look into whether the actions possibly violated the bank's staff rules.
Wolfowitz told the bank's staff in an e-mail that he would ensure the board has access to the facts in the case "in a manner that also respects the bank's rules concerning the right of every staff member to the confidentiality of his or her records." He said he accepted "full responsibility for the actions taken in this case" and that he had always acted to uphold bank rules on employee rights and treatment.
A copy of the letter was obtained by Reuters. Riza had been given an external assignment to the US State Department in September 2005, when her involvement with Wolfowitz was made public.
Both are divorced. Riza worked at the bank for eight years and was a senior communications adviser in its Middle East Department when she was transferred to the State Department. She remained on the bank's payroll. Wolfowitz joined the World Bank in mid-2005 after serving as US deputy defence secretary, a position in which he acted as a leading architect of the Iraq War.
NO LONGER AT STATE DEPARTMENT State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Riza was no longer working for the department and since September 2006 had been working for the Foundation for the Future, an international nongovernmental organisation largely funded by the United States.
The foundation provides grants to civil society in the broader Middle East and North Africa region to "advance freedom and democratic values and practice," according to the State Department's Web site.
Comments
Comments are closed.