What Goes Around …
To those who are rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect that Paul Wolfowitz may be toppled from the presidency of the World Bank by a Euro-putsch designed to seize control of the world's largest public lending institution, we commend the dispatches our Benny Avni has been filing out of Turtle Bay. It turns out that the United Nations is riddled with arrangements that, in sharp contrast to the fully disclosed and proper example established by Mr. Wolfowitz, tempt an investigation. This may stem from the ingrown culture of the world body, but those who set the heavens in motion should not be surprised when their own satellites fall to ground.
At the bank, the "ad hoc" committee looking into the charges of conflict of interest and girlfriend-favoritism made against Mr. Wolfowitz is led by the Dutch, Norwegians, and French, who told the Washington Post last Saturday that a report finding Mr. Wolfowitz to be unsuitable was already finished, even before hearing his detailed refutation of the charges before the same committee. Resistance against the Euro-putsch has come from Africa, as reported in the Washington Post by Ambassador Andrew Young and in the Wall Street Journal. It's too soon to say how it will all turn out.
It's not too soon to say, however, that the issue that has been raised — favoritism, cronyism, conflicts of interest, and ethics generally among the employees and managers of the Bretton Woods structures and other international economic institutions — is worthy of aggressive new investigation. This could start with the United Nations Development Program, where a former chairman of the World Bank's ethics committee, Ad Melkert, is now effectively, if not in title, the top man. Mr. Avni reported last week that the advice Mr. Melkert gave Mr. Wolfowitz on employing his girlfriend at the bank has become a key component in the struggle over leadership of the World Bank.
What has happened since Mr. Melkert — a Dutch political hack who sought and failed to gain the prime ministership in the Hague — arrived at the UNDP. It turns out that Mr. Melkert found an organization that did not even have such management tools as an ethics committee. Nor, a year after he arrived, has one been created, Mr. Avni reports. He quotes a spokesman, David Morrison, as saying the agency is currently awaiting a report about creating an ethics "function," which by our lights is long overdue at an agency that disperses $5 billion annually worldwide.
Mr. Avni has quoted an internal UNDP ombudsman report that, although not meant for publication, was seen by The New York Sun. It found that management ills that have plagued the UNDP have not been improved much under Mr. Melkert. "As in the past four periods, the abuse of authority heads the list," the 2006 report concluded. It strikes us as rich soil for the next investigation after the Europeans finish their attack on Mr. Wolfowitz. Our own instinct is that Mr. Wolfowitz has less to fear from aggressive enforcement of an ethics function than other institutions that are so full of self-satisfaction decades after they were established in the light of Bretton Woods.
