"We have to ensure that the bank can effectively carry out its mandate and maintain its credibility and reputation as well as the motivation of its staff".
This statement on the Paul Wolfowitz controversy by the development committee of the World Bank in Washington following its weekend meeting all but seals the fate of its president after he admitted intervening to boost the salary of his girlfriend when she left the bank.
Mr Wolfowitz is determined to stay on as president but his action flies in the face of the anti-corruption agenda he has insisted on in dealing with its member states. "We expect the bank to adhere to a high standard of internal governance", the board's statement went on. Several European governments oppose him, and there have been protests from World Bank staff who say his actions cannot be reconciled with its norms and policies. A programme to raise $30 billion over the next three years for the International Development Agency, the arm of the bank that provides low-cost loans and assistance to the world's poorest countries, is seen by the Europeans as particularly vulnerable to such charges of hypocrisy.
Behind this row are substantial policy differences over whether and how to make anti-corruption policies a condition of World Bank loans and grants. This is not to mention Mr Wolfowitz's previous job as one of the chief architects of the Bush administration's Iraq war strategy at the Pentagon. His appointment to the bank two years ago came as that strategy was unravelling. He has asked his critics not to judge him on Iraq, but many of them detect in his managerial style the same dogmatic high-handed arrogance with which the war was pursued.
The World Bank has gone through several policy convulsions over recent years, whether on ecologically damaging gargantuan projects, structural adjustment, shock therapy neoliberal policies, or this anti-corruption drive; nevertheless its reputation as the primary source of international finance for the developing world and a central clearing house for economic research and information has stood up well.
Its organisational structure spans major institutions and although it comes under United Nations auspices, its controlling shareholdings are heavily weighted towards the richest states which contribute most of its funding. Conventionally, the World Bank president has been a US citizen, while the managing director of its sister organisation the International Monetary Fund has been a European. Mr Wolfowitz's fate will be decided within the World Bank's administration but no doubt high politics will be brought to bear on its future leadership.