Madam, - People must find it increasingly difficult to understand the World Bank's contradictory policy on corruption.
In recent months the bank's front man, Paul Wolfowitz, correctly noted that governance and accountability are central to development. He announced that he would not deal with corrupt governments. This clear public stance was based on exhaustive research showing that corruption impedes growth and poverty reduction.
Yet within weeks, Wolfowitz approved a $37 billion debt relief package for 17 countries - including some of the most corrupt, such as Rwanda, Mozambique, and Uganda.
The unconditional nature of debt relief, which places the onus on governments to ensure that savings genuinely assist the poor, is a major cause for concern. Supporters of debt relief naively believe that the money it releases will find its way to the poorest of the poor in African countries.
In this naïve world view, there are no corrupt rulers, no corrupt governments and no nasty armies. Instead there are governments whose only constraints are the funds which, if they did not have to spend on servicing debt, they would spend on food, medicine and schoolbooks.
But the reality of African politics, with governments which are guilty of shocking human rights abuses and endemic and unchallenged corruption, is quite different.
- Yours, etc,
JOHN O'SHEA, Goal, Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin.