You can't make this up

In any sane world, if you tried, no one would believe you:

PAUL WOLFOWITZ, the controversial president of the World Bank, was forced into an embarrassing climbdown yesterday over his aggressive anti-corruption drive in the developing world, as the governments of rich nations insisted on overseeing it in detail.

In an effective rebuke to Mr Wolfowitz amid accusations from inside and outside the bank that he has pursued his anti-corruption strategy in a high-handed fashion, ministers from around the globe, who are the ultimate governors of the world’s leading development body, moved to assert control.

After lengthy haggling behind closed doors at the World Bank’s ruling Development Committee, the ministers approved Mr Wolfowitz’s strategy to fight Third World corruption. However, they insisted that their representatives on the bank’s Washington-based executive board would oversee its implementation.

“We stressed the importance of board oversight of the [anti-corruption] strategy as it is developed and implemented,” the committee said.

The clear reproach to Mr Wolfowitz came after months of mounting tensions between the bank’s president and the governments of its key donor countries, mainly in Europe, over his zeal in undertaking his crusade. Concern among European governments, including those of Britain, France and Germany, has grown since Mr Wolfowitz suspended World Bank loans to several countries, including Kenya, Bangladesh, India and Cameroon. Critics charged him with acting arbitrarily and setting up the bank as judge and jury of poor countries’ governments.

This report from 2004 estimated corruption at the World Bank exceeded $100 Billion dollars. Yes, that's with a 'B'.

It's no small problem and certainly not one that can or should be ignored. So when the new President shows up intent on doing something about it, what's the response? I have to laugh:

Yet, amid simmering discontent among World Bank officials, other ministers were openly unhappy. Palaniappam Chidambaram, the Indian Finance Minister, said that the bank’s new stance carried the risk “of governance becoming a conditionality for development . . . Development cannot wait for improved governance and a corruption-free world. Both must go hand in hand.”

You can't make this up.