Corruption
The World Bank has received accusations of corruption for many years. Since the Bank is an independent specialized agency of the United Nations and considering the old adage, “The fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree”, this might not come as a surprise to most. The United Nations has a major and documented track record on corruption of every conceivable sort. It would be too simplistic to just leave it at that. In May, 2004, Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Indiana), as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, kicked off the most recent inquiry into corruption related to the activities of the multilateral development banks, of which the World Bank is foremost.
The heads of the various development banks were invited to testify (voluntarily) before the Committee. According to Sen. Lugar, James Wolfensohn,
“declined the invitation, citing the established practice of Bank officials not to testify before the legislatures of their numerous member countries.”
Witnesses before the Committee testified that as much as $100 billion may have been lost to corruption in World Bank lending projects. In Sen. Lugar’s opening remarks, he points out that the entire history of the World Bank is suspect, with between 5 percent and 25 percent of all lending being lost to corruption.
“But corruption remains a serious problem. Dr. Jeffrey Winters of Northwestern University, who will testify before us today, estimates that the World Bank ’has participated mostly passively in the corruption of roughly $100 billion of its loan funds intended for development.’ Other experts estimate that between 5 percent and 25 percent of the $525 billion that the World Bank has lent since 1946 has been misused.
This is equivalent to between $26 billion and $130 billion. Even if corruption is at the low end of estimates, millions of people living in poverty may have lost opportunities to improve their health, education, and economic condition.” 10
One must wonder why World Bank officials have been so sloppy and careless with taxpayer dollars. Even further, one must wonder if the corruption was a necessity to achieve the underlying purposes of the Bank, that is, to create bogus and unwanted projects in order to “stimulate” trade.
Sen. Lugar continued his opening remarks,
“Corruption thwarts development efforts in many ways. Bribes can influence important bank decisions on projects and on contractors. Misuse of funds can inflate project costs, deny needed assistance to the poor, and cause projects to fail. Stolen money may prop up dictatorships and finance human rights abuses.
Moreover, when developing countries lose development bank funds through corruption, the taxpayers in those poor countries are still obligated to repay the development banks. So, not only are the impoverished cheated out of development benefits, they are left to repay the resulting debts to the banks.”11
It has not been determined which Bank employees might have taken bribes in exchange for influence, but one can be sure that any deal starting with corruption only has one direction to go – down. In the end, it is helpless individuals who are left holding the bag. The incurred debts and failed projects just add to the impoverishment of already poor people.
This is not to say that charges of corruption at the World Bank are modern revelations only. In 1994, marking the 50th anniversary of its creation at Bretton Woods, South End Press released “50 Years is Enough: The Case Against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund,.” edited by Kevin Danaher. The book details official Bank and IMF reports that reveal the same kind of corruption back then.
In addition, it revealed different types of corruption, for instance,
“Beyond the wasted money and the environmental devastation, there was an even more sinister side to the Bank during the McNamara years: the World Bank’s predilection for increasing support to military regimes that tortured and murdered their subjects, sometimes immediately after the violent overthrow of more democratic governments.
In 1979, Senator James Abourezk (D-South Dakota) denounced the bank on the Senate floor, noting that the Bank was increasing ’loans to four newly repressive governments [Chile, Uruguay, Argentina and the Philippines] twice as fast as all others.’
He noted that 15 of the world’s most repressive governments would receive a third of all World Bank loan commitments in 1979, and that Congress and the Carter administration had cut off bilateral aid to four of the 15 — Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Ethiopia — for flagrant human rights violations.
He blasted the Bank’s ’excessive secretiveness’ and reminded his colleagues that ’we vote the money, yet we do not know where it goes.’” 12
The text speaks for itself and needs no comment. Readers of this report will likely have a better understanding of where the money went!
Conclusions
This report does not pretend to be an exhaustive analysis of the World Bank. There are many facets, examples and case studies that could be explored. In fact, many critical and analytical books have been written about the World Bank. The object of this report was to show how the World Bank fits into globalization as a central member in the triad of global monetary powers: The IMF, the BIS and the World Bank. The World Bank is likely to continue to operate despite any amount of political flack or public protest. Such is the pattern of elitist-dominated institutions. Such is the history of the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements.
It is sufficient to conclude that…
- of the two architects of the World Bank, one was a top Soviet communist agent (Harry Dexter White) and the other was a British ideologue (John Maynard Keynes) totally dedicated to globalism (See Global Banking: The International Monetary Fund for more details on White and Keynes)
- From the beginning, the Bank has been dominated by international banking interests and members of the Council on Foreign Relations and later by the Trilateral Commission
- the cry of “poverty reduction” is a sham to conceal the recycling of billions of taxpayer dollars, if not trillions, into private hands
- the cry of “poverty reduction” defuses critics of the Bank as being anti-poor and pro-poverty
- corruption at the World Bank goes back decades, if not all the way to the very beginning
Footnotes
- World Bank web site, About Page
- The August Review, Global Banking: The International Monetary Fund
- World Bank web site, IBRD Articles of Agreement: Article I
- Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents (Norton, 2002), p. 234
- ibid, p. 13
- ibid
- Wallach, Whose Trade Organization? (The New Press, 2004), p.125]
- See also, Bechtel Vs. Bolivia: The Bolivian Water Revolt
- See also, The New Yorker, letter on Leasing the Rain
- See also, PBS, Leasing the Rain
- World Bank web site, Bolivia Country Brief
- Stiglitz, op. cit., p. 234
- Lugar, U.S. Senate Website, $100 billion may have been lost to World Bank Corruption, May 13, 2004
- ibid.
- Hanaher, 50 Years is Enough: The Case Against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, (South End Press, 1994), p. 10
NOTE: Carl Teichrib, Senior Fellow at World Research Library, contributed to this report
by Patrick M. Wood | recovered through WayBackMachine Website
Chronological History of Events Related to the World Bank
2007-08 Financial Collapse Begins with the Filing for Bankruptcy by New Century Financial
Battle of Seattle (Nov 30-Dec 1): The 1999 WTO Protests Instigated by Police Agent Provocateurs as Documented by Alex Jones
The Clinton Foundation is Incorporated in Arkansas
UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) Sends Out Tetanus Vaccine in Philippines and Mexico Laced with Birth Control Drugs
Investigative Reporter, Danny Casalaro, ‘Suicided’ Prior to Publishing “Something Really Big” According to Friends
The Children’s Vaccine Initiative was Founded by the Rockefeller Foundation to Expand the Vaccine Market
The Trilateral Commission is Formed by David Rockefeller
The Vietnam War Begins (Unofficially), but Why Would America get Involved in this Needless War?
First Bilderberg Meeting of the Elites Takes Place at the Bilderberg Hotel in Oosterbeek, Holland
