The World Bank’s Depart-ment of Institutional Integrity (INT), which investigates allegations of fraud and corruption in bank-financed projects as well as possible staff misconduct, concluded 301 cases this year.
According to the World Bank Group’s Annual Integrity Report for 2007, these included 149 external cases, which involved fraud and corruption in World Bank projects. Eighty-five of these cases were fully investigated and 33 of them were found to be substantiated. World Bank President Robert Zoellick said the bank recognized that corruption was one of the biggest obstacles to economic and social development, hence the setting up of the INT in 2001. The INT reports directly to the World Bank President.
According to the report, Latin America and the Caribbean had an over 50% decline in the number of INT cases. However, leading the number of cases opened this fiscal year, were in East Asia/Pacific followed by Africa, Europe/Central Asia, South Asia and Middle East/North Africa. The report said that the number of cases opened represents a 39% decrease in comparison with 2006.
“The sharp decline in the number of new cases opened is a result of a temporary backlog in case intake caused by the establishment of the Centralized Case Intake Unit (CCI) in February 2007 and the introduction of new intake procedures,” the report said.
However, the “sharp reduction in the opening of cases in the South Asia region does not indicate less reporting or a better fiduciary environment: rather, it represents a delay in processing complaints by the team responsible for the South Asia region due to their involvement with the Detailed Implementation Review (DIR) in India
