The World Bank vowed on Tuesday that it will continue to fight fraud and corruption, citing it has sanctioned over 100 entities for wrongdoing in World Bank-financed projects over the past two fiscal years.

A report released Tuesday stated that the World Bank Group's Institutional Integrity Department (INT) conducted and closed 441 external investigations into fraud and corruption in projects that received World Bank financing over the past two fiscal years.

As a result of such investigations, the World Bank debarred 58 firms and 54 individuals due to fraud and corruption over the period covered in the report, rendering them ineligible to participate in World Bank-financed projects.

Since 1999, the World Bank has sanctioned 338 firms and individuals, with all sanctions published on the World Bank's website and publicly announced.

The World Bank is the only multilateral development bank that has published the names of the firms it has sanctioned for corrupt practices -- a major deterrent to wrongdoing, said the report.

"There are more than 1 billion people worldwide surviving on 1 dollar a day, and corruption threatens their hopes for a better quality of life and a more promising future," said World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz.

"When we find that scarce development dollars have been wrongly diverted from their intended purpose of benefiting the poor, we have a responsibility to take action. INT's work helps us to fulfill this obligation to the poor, who are our ultimate clients, by detecting and deterring fraud and corruption, and by working with others within the World Bank to mitigate risks in future operations," he added.

The report also finds that the Integrity Department completed 227 internal cases involving staff misconduct over the past two fiscal years.

Of these, INT substantiated allegations in 77 of the cases involving 78 staff members. Equally important, after investigating the allegations, the INT cleared the staff members of any wrongdoing in 44 internal cases.

As a result of the substantiated allegations, the World Bank terminated and/or barred from rehire 22 staff and disciplined 11 others for fraud and corruption; terminated and/or barred five staff from rehire members for sexual harassment; disciplined five for failure to comply with personal obligations; terminated and/or barred from rehire seven others for conflict of interest or other violations; and disciplined four others for the same reasons.

The largest single source of allegations received by the INT in the 2006 fiscal year was against World Bank staff and consultants, at 32 percent of all allegations, the same percentage as the previous fiscal year, according to the report.

The nature of the allegations received related to lending activities during the past two fiscal years, including procurement fraud, collusion, kickbacks and bribes, the misuse of project assets, and misrepresentation of qualifications in bid submissions.

"Corruption has a devastating impact on the capacity of governments to function properly; on the private sector to grow and create employment; on the talents and energies of people to add value in productive ways; and ultimately on societies to lift themselves out of poverty," said INT Director Suzanne Rich Folsom.

"The World Bank, and the Integrity Department, must continue to do everything possible to ensure that the funds entrusted to our institution by its shareholders are used for their intended purposes," she added.

Source: Xinhua