Wolfowitz’s story questioned

WASHINGTON – The former chairman of the World Bank’s ethics committee Tuesday accused the institution’s embattled president, Paul Wolfowitz, of misleading a panel investigating his role in granting his girlfriend a substantial pay raise.

In a written submission to the investigating committee, the former ethics chairman, Ad Melkert, contradicted Wolfowitz’s assertion that he fully informed bank officers of his handling of his girlfriend’s transfer to the State Department and that his actions had their blessing.

“I am deeply hurt by efforts to manipulate information,” Melkert said in his statement, maintaining that his committee was never consulted on the details of a promotion-and-raise package for Wolfowitz’s girlfriend.

His comments to the committee were an elaboration on a statement he released late Monday.

Wolfowitz’s attorney, Robert Bennett, said his client was being unfairly blamed for following the instructions of the ethics committee by finding another job for his companion, Shaha Riza, a senior World Bank official, to avoid an obvious conflict of interest when he arrived at the bank.

The bank’s executive board began discussing Wolfowitz’s fate late Tuesday, while awaiting a full report from the investigating committee, said three bank officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The board canceled a meeting on climate change, clearing Thursday and Friday to deliberate on Wolfowitz.

Melkert is now a top administrator at the U.N. Development Program but worked at the World Bank and chaired its ethics committee when Wolfowitz took over as president in 2005. According to Melkert, Wolfowitz had been advised by the ethics committee that Riza, a Middle East expert, needed to be transferred to a job beyond his supervision and that she was entitled to compensation for the disruption to her career. But Melkert said his committee was never told the details of the raise Wolfowitz then approved – a jump from about $133,000 a year to more than $190,000, with guaranteed promotions in later years.

Bennett said Riza came up with the salary numbers herself, basing them on the middle range for someone who had attained her status at the bank. An attorney for Riza declined to comment.

In his appearance before the investigating committee on Monday, Wolfowitz cast himself as the victim of a “smear campaign.” He told the committee that he had tried to fairly address the strain that his assumption of the presidency placed on his longtime companion while gaining the blessing of the ethics committee.

Wolfowitz’s appearance did not impress the investigators, according to two senior bank officials briefed by committee members. His testimony did not appear to change the disposition of the bank’s governing board to pursue an end to his tenure, ideally via his resignation, these sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak for the board.