[stop-imf] IMF staff rejects selection process for chief

[Robert Weissman]

From: World Bank Press Review <devnews@worldbank.org>
March 31, 2004

IMF Staff Reject Selection Process. Europe's plan to impose its own
candidate as managing director of the International Monetary Fund has
provoked a grassroots revolt among staff at the Washington-based lender,
it emerged last night, reports The Guardian (UK).

A leaked memo from one of the IMF's top officials expressed "increasing
concern" about the failure of the Fund to practice the transparency it
preaches to governments in the developing world. Amid renewed acrimony
between European governments over which country should enjoy the right to
choose the next IMF head, Jack Boorman, the head of policy development and
review, warned the Fund's credibility was at stake in an email to staff.
"What we see thus far is unfortunately anything but open and transparent,"
Boorman said. He warned colleagues they would be directly affected if the
process failed to produce the best candidate. "The managing director,
working with the executive board, sets the tone and direction of the
institution and he or she creates the work environment which affects the
productivity and morale of the staff," he added. He called on staff to
make their concerns known about the way in which European governments have
brushed off the groundswell of opposition from both developing and
developed countries.

Dow Jones meanwhile reports that a large group of Latin American countries
has decided to throw its support behind Rodrigo Rato, Spain's outgoing
finance minister, as the race to name the new chief of the IMF heats up.
In a meeting with a small group of foreign journalists Tuesday, Mexican
Finance Minister Francisco Gil Diaz said that 14 Latin American nations
have signed an accord thus far to support Rato to replace Horst Koehler,
who resigned as the IMF's managing director earlier this month. Those
nations include Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Peru,
Bolivia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica
and Panama.