World Bank: Wolfowitz's resignation (updated May 18, 2007)
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Paul Wolfowitz, 63, the president of the World Bank, on May 17, 2007, announced his resignation, following a ruling on May 14 that he had broken the banks code of ethics, staff rules, and his own contract. Wolfowitz had been accused of damaging the bank’s credibility and violating its internal rules by dictating the terms of a promotion and pay rise for his girlfriend, Shaha Riza (a bank employee), when she was seconded to an external assignment. Riza had been assigned to a new post, outside the bank, in 2005 when Wolfowitz assumed the bank’s presidency, because the multinational lending institution’s internal rules on ethics prohibited personal relationships between employees and their supervisors. The US government on May 15 had indicated that it would agree to Wolfowitz's resigning from the World Bank but that it continued to support him.
