The Whistleblowers' Tale (The real disgrace at the World Bank.)

In the summer of 1997, two senior World Bank officials published an academic article under the cheerful title, "Africa on the Move: Attracting Private Capital to a Changing Continent." The authors, Jean-Louis Sarbib of France and Callisto Madavo of Zimbabwe, were responsible for the bank's work in Africa, and they took an optimistic view. "A new spirit of social and economic progress has energized much of the region," they wrote, "and gradually the rest of the world is beginning to take notice."

Among the bank's own contributions to this African Renaissance, as it was then being billed, was something called the Niger Health Sector Development Program. It had been approved by Mr. Sarbib the year before with the stated objectives of improving the quality and coverage of basic health services, expanding the population's access to generic drugs and reforming the health sector. The plan anticipated expenditures of $275 million over five years, starting with an initial grant of $40 million--big sums for a small, highly indebted and politically unstable country.

Months before the project was formally approved by the bank's board, however, doubts about its size, nature and prospective efficacy were being raised by a midlevel bank officer named Bahram Mahmoudi.

Why were 13 staff members--more than double the usual size--assigned to the program?

For midcareer officials, the bank's hex can be absolutely devastating. It can make its enemies unemployable. A foreign national who loses his job can have his U.S. visa revoked. The result is a culture of conformity, silence and fear.

Mr. Sarbib was subsequently promoted to senior vice president before retiring last year. Mr. Madavo is a visiting professor at Georgetown. Both men recently signed a public letter calling on Paul Wolfowitz to resign for damaging the bank's reputation.

Even worse the public has a gullible and insatiable hunger for Marxist lies aimed at destroying our society. We suffer from a fatalistic death wish born of atheism infecting culture at its roots.
Only a Great Reawakening, acknowledging that we are a broken people under God can save us from the pit into which we are descending.

“...
These developments are gradually improving the integrity of our national life. Two weeks ago, Nigeria had its first general election intended to pass power from one elected government to another. While the election did not meet the high standards we set for ourselves, it did reveal that for citizens, the fight against corruption was a top priority “right up there with food, health care and education”. In other words, Nigerians made the same connection between runaway corruption and human suffering that Wolfowitz rightly does.

Corruption is the greatest challenge to progress across much of the developing world, and as we in Nigeria know from bitter experience, this is particularly so in Africa.
...”

“...
And he has matched words with deeds through initiatives to promote greater international cooperation with poor countries, especially regarding the recovery of assets from pilfered resources. Effective efforts at fighting corruption cannot stop at our borders when up to 80 per cent of the “grand corruption” perpetrated in Africa is dependent on international mechanisms that facilitate money laundering.
Wolfowitz has made a praiseworthy effort to halt the illicit drain of money from the coffers of poor countries. Just this simple step “denying a haven for money stolen from a poor country” addresses more than half the problem of corruption in Africa.
...”

•Nuhu Ribadu is the chairman of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the piece was first published in the New York Times

Very good points - THIS should be publicized, over and over.

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