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Padma loan cancellation appropriate

Asserts new WB chief

Staff Correspondent
New World Bank President Jim Yong Kim has said the global lender's decision to cancel the Padma bridge loan was appropriate.
Kim made the remark SEE PAGE 6 COL 1 FROM PAGE 1 at a media roundtable in Washington DC on Monday, his first day on the job.
The WB on June 29 cancelled $1.2 billion credit for the project, claiming to have proof of a corruption conspiracy involving Bangladeshi officials, executives of a Canadian firm and private individuals. The cancellation came on the last working day of immedi-ate past WB president RobertZoellick.
In an instant reaction to the WB decision, Finance Minister AMA Muhith said he thought the statement cancelling the loan was not of the bank's but of its outgoing president Zoellick's, and that it was unacceptable.
Replying to a journalist's query on Monday, the new WB chief said, "I do think it [the WB decision] was appropriate."
"I've been following the situation closely, and Mr
Zoellick and the senior staff have informed me fully about the decision," Kim was quoted as saying in aWB transcript.
"The Bank has a sterling record in fighting corruption. The Bank was the first to raise the issue of corruption in the 1990s and has a no-tolerance policy for corruption. The discussions with the government of Bangladesh started in September. Even toward the very end, there were extensions given so that there would be what we would think of as an appropriate response; and not seeing one, we cancelled the bridge project.
"Now, we're very concerned about the well-being of the poorest people in Bangladesh, but what I must stress is the Bank's position is that we do not tolerate corruption."
Following the WB's decision, Asian Development Bank, a co-financer of the
$2.9 billion project, said that it was unable to finance the project.
Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica), another co-financer of the project, said it would decide on the project's funding after consultation with the Japanese government.
The finance minister on Monday said in parliament that immediate past WB president Zoellick had never taken into cognisance any of Bangladesh's proposals to end the stalemate over the Padma bridge project.
"Probably in an attempt to settle the issue in haste during his term, the outgoing WB president Robert Zoellick took this imprudent decision which has shattered Bangladesh's image," Muhith told the House.
The minister urged the bank's new management to review the decision, and said, “We hope to reopen our dialogue with the new WB leadership shortly on this