Wolfowitz row seen hurting Africa anti-graft drive

DAKAR (Reuters) - The World Bank has roared against corruption in Africa for years but its credibility has been badly mauled by the favoritism scandal that sent the bank’s U.S. chief Paul Wolfowitz limping off into retirement.

Governments in Africa, whose reputation for corruption goes hand in hand with its status as the world’s poorest continent, had grown used to being lectured by World Bank delegations, some headed by “Wolfie” himself, about good governance and transparency.

After weeks of wrangling, Wolfowitz resigned as World Bank president on Thursday over a row triggered by his involvement in a highly paid promotion for his companion.

Not surprisingly, the foot-dragging exit of the American head of the global aid body provoked some grim satisfaction across Africa, where sharing out jobs to family and friends is widely seen as a perk of office at all levels.

“How can you be lecturing Africa about corruption while you’re using World Bank money to give your girlfriend a pay rise?,” said Dick Musisi Mpiima, Chairman of the Uganda Exporters, Importers and Traders Association.

But others regretted Wolfowitz’s departure, describing him as a friend of Africa and sensitive to its problems and needs.

“To me he did a good job, hard working. He moved to where the action is to find out how the World Bank’s money was being spent,” Ghana’s Finance Minister, Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, said.

“I believe ... African countries benefited too,” he added, speaking on the sidelines of a G8 finance ministers meeting in Potsdam, Germany. Ghana currently chairs the African Union:

Nevertheless, officials and analysts said the scandal would undermine the World Bank’s flagship campaign to promote clean government and honest business on a African continent coveted by foreign corporations for its oil and mineral riches.

“INTEGRITY AT STAKE”

“Its integrity is at stake,” Maxwell Mkwezalamba, an African Union commissioner for economic affairs, said in Nairobi.

Many Africans said the affair also showed the urgent need to broaden the leadership of the aid body to reflect its global membership. The United States, the largest shareholder and supplier of capital, has up to now been able to name its chief.

“We are important stakeholders because we borrow money from the bank and we must, therefore, have a say in its matters,” said Zambia’s Information Minister Mike Mlongoti.

Democratic Republic of Congo’s Budget Minister Alphonse Muzito said he believed Wolfowitz, a former U.S. deputy defense secretary, had fallen victim to enemies inside the bank.

But there was consensus that the scandal sent exactly the wrong message to African leaders being increasingly wooed by deep-pocketed Western corporations, and by resource-hungry China, for lucrative trade and investment contracts.

“The way Wolfowitz negotiated a pay rise for his girlfriend is exactly the same as the way in which President Deby has embezzled oil revenues,” said Ngarlegy Yorongar, a veteran opposition critic of Chad’s President Idriss Deby.

Wolfowitz briefly halted loans to Chad in early 2006 after the World Bank saw Deby’s government making a grab for revenues from a foreign-run oil pipeline built with the help of World Bank funding. Yorongar and other critics argue that ordinary Chadians benefit little from the oil pumped.

“It would be a pity to go back to the days when World Bank representatives to Africa had very cozy relationships with the executive,” said Maina Kiai, a human rights activist in Kenya.