By Filipe Rufino - 15th April 2007
Germany and the UK have withdrawn their support for World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz following the highly-publicised pay-rise scandal involving his girlfriend.
However, a number of EU countries, including France and Spain, have remained silent over the affair.
Wolfowitz, who made a commitment to crack down on corruption at the bank when he started his mandate in 2005, is under fire for having approved a lucrative promotion for his girlfriend Shaha Ali Riza, who also works for the bank.
“This whole affair has damaged the credibility of the bank and should never had taken place," UK development minister Hilary Benn said.
German development minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul added that Wolfowitz should say “if he still has credibility to represent the Bank”.
Wolfowitz, the former US undersecretary of defence and key architect of the Iraq invasion in 2003, also approved attractive salary packages for two other aides who used to work with him at the Pentagon, it has emerged.
Riza and the two officials are earning over $200,000 net per year, a figure surpassing the salary of US vice president Dick Cheney, who earns $180,000, according to the Washignton Post.
At a press conference over the weekend, Wolfowitz said that "the bank has important work to do and I will continue to do it".
Apart from the US, only one developed country - Japan - has backed Wolfowitz’s work at the bank since the affair emerged.
The EU supported Wolfowitz’s bid to the World Bank as part of a deal under which the US would support a European candidate - Pascal Lamy- to the WTO.
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