Manipulation among World Bank bureaucrats At least $24 billion in investments has been lost in the fight against climate change, according to a bombshell report from a left-leaning charity group.
An investigation by Oxfam “Poor record-keeping practices” were revealed by the DC-based international lender, resulting in the misappropriation of funds between $24 billion and $41 billion.
The agency’s audit showed a “lack of traceable spending” over the past seven years – partly due to a strange accounting practice in which banks account for their climate financing at the time of project approval rather than at the time of project completion. Happens, according to the release of the report last week.
“It’s like asking your doctor to assess your diet just by looking at your grocery list, without checking what’s actually going in your fridge,” said Kate Donald, head of Oxfam’s Washington DC office.
A World Bank insider, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the figure of missing money “could be double or 10 times higher.”
“All the figures have been maintained regularly,” the source said. “No one has any idea who spends how much.”
Explosive findings from Oxfam, a British-based NGO, mean the US has lost just $4 billion as it is the organization’s largest shareholder with a 16% stake.
“This is an outrageous waste of American taxpayers’ money on a useless political purpose. This is an insult to the American people,” Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation, told The Post:
“The World Bank and all international institutions must be held fully accountable. Gardiner, a former senior aide to the late British prime minister, said massive wasteful spending on left-wing, progressive causes is fundamentally against the American national interest.
The charity also said that obtaining basic expenditure data was “laborious and difficult”.
“There are no clear public records showing where this money went or how it was used,” Oxfam said in a press release. It is also “unclear” whether money sent to poor countries to fight global warming was also spent on climate change. Projects.
A World Bank spokesperson did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.
The international lender was established in 1944 to help rebuild Europe and Japan after World War II.
Today, it distributes cash in the form of loans or grants to less affluent countries “to create a world free from poverty.”
Last week, the Biden-Harris administration voted in favor of increasing the bank’s lending capacity Up to $150 billion over the next 10 years.
The United States is the only government among the 189 World Bank countries that has the power to veto any changes in the way it is run because it is the main founding member of the global body.
May 2024 report The Congressional Research Service shows that the World Bank’s total capital is just under $320 billion, with US taxpayers contributing more than $57 billion or more.
Wealthy countries donate directly to the bank and make multi-billion dollar pledges that allow it to borrow megabucks of loans to bankroll projects abroad.
Those pledges can also be used to cover holes in its finances in exceptional circumstances.
According to the CRS report, the World Bank has about $300 billion of what it brands “callable capital” to deploy as an economic firefighting fund and to deal with a major financial shock.
A recent report from bank officials said the probability of using that emergency handbrake was “extremely low.”
The international lender also makes money on the investments it makes, as well as interest on any loans it approves.
The largesse of US taxpayers allows World Bank staff to receive ‘fat cat’ tax-free salaries and senior directors are able to take home more than America’s Commander-in-Chief.
Top officials in Washington DC You can get $511,000 in pants every year without paying a dime to Uncle Sam.
President Biden, by contrast, earns a pre-tax salary $400,000 each year,
Even the most junior World Bank employee can get up to $62,000 tax-free.
Other lavish benefits of the global body in Downtown Washington DC include generous pension plans that require only a minimum 5% contribution from the employee.
Employees also get the added bonus of enjoying free US health insurance for life, plus they are given 26 days of annual leave and 15 days of sick leave a year.
