Pressure on Wolfowitz to resign

The flap at the World Bank over Bank president Paul Wolfowitz's involvement in securing a pay raise for a female staffer has led to calls for his resignation.

The Financial Times reports in, "Pressure grows on Wolfowitz to resign":

Paul Wolfowitz was under pressure to resign as president of the World Bank on Thursday after admitting he was personally involved in securing a large pay rise and promotion for a Bank official with whom he was romantically involved.

The Bank president issued a public apology, saying: “I made a mistake for which I am sorry”.

The apology came after the Financial Times revealed that Mr Wolfowitz ordered the World Bank’s head of human resources to offer Shaha Riza the pay rise and promotion as part of a secondment package.

The instructions were set out in a memorandum dated August 11 2005, according to two sources who have seen the document.

The details of the 2005 memo are laid out further down in the article. It seems apparent that the pay raise and promotional pay increases were rather out of line with the usual scale of advancement rewards.

As FT mentioned in an earlier report on the matter, the outrage over this controversy was also a reflection of poor relations between Wolfowitz's team and bank staff.