Wolfowitz 'proud and satisfied' of WB term

Outgoing World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, in a statement on May 28, strongly defended his time in office and said he was forced to quit as emotions had got out of control over his girl friend's promotion.

Commenting on his resignation, he said "somebody said this is a very long statement and I said, 'Well it's true but there's actually a lot we've accomplished'. And I feel very proud of that, very satisfied about that and ready to go on and do other things."

Wolfowitz is to step down on June 30 in the "best interests" of the bank following weeks of furore over the generous pay and promotion package he arranged for his girlfriend Shaha Riza, a bank employee.

"I'm pleased that finally the board did accept that I acted in good faith and acted ethically and I accept the fact that by the time we got around to that, emotions here (Washington) were so overheated that I don't think I could have accomplished what I wanted to accomplish for the people I really care about," he told BBC World Service commenting on the scandal.

When asked about his relationship with the Bank and the calls from current and former bank staff for him to go, he said: "I think it tells us more about the media than about the bank and I'll leave it at that. People were reacting to a whole string of inaccurate statements and by the time we got to anything approximating accuracy the passions were around the bend."

Asked whether there was any damage to the Bank's reputation, Wolfowitz said "Hopefully people will look at some of the governance issues here and the human resources issues here and it could be a stronger place, it should be a stronger place. This kind of experience, actually exposes problems but you don't solve problems unless you expose them."

Asked if his successor should be from the US, Wolfowitz said: "I do think something needs to be done about the under representation of African countries. "I think if we're going to take African voices seriously, then there need to be more of them, there also needs to be a much more concerted effort to increase the African voices in the bank's staff."

He highlighted concerns about the support for his anti-corruption policies. "People were much more comfortable talking about it than actually confronting the consequences of problems."

"Frankly the most inspired people and the ones most easily convinced, happen to be the ones that are out there working in country offices. "There's something that's a little enervating, to be charitable about it, about being in these wonderful comfortable conditions in Washington," he said in a wider comment about his strategies at the Bank.

When asked if he had any regrets he said "Oh probably a couple, but right now I feel pretty good."

And of regrets he said he had "probably a couple, but right now I feel pretty good."