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| Tuesday, 30 March 2004 |
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World Bank Country Director, Peter Harrold has described an article that appeared in the "Daily Mirror" of March 20, written by Ravi Ladduwahetty and headlined-UPFA should have consensus in Economic policies-World Bank"- as highly inflammatory, misleading and inaccurate. Harrold in a letter to the Editor of the "Daily Mirror" Lalith Alahakoon stated; "I am writing to bring to your attention how the Daily Mirror in an article written by Ravi Ladduwahetty, published on 20 March distorted comments I made during an interview to give an inappropriate position of the World Bank. I consider the headline of this said article "UPFA Should Have Consensus In Economic Policies - World Bank," highly inflammatory, misleading and inaccurate. The audio tape of this interview in our possession clearly indicates that when asked to respond to what the reporter referred to as the "paradoxical situation" of the SLFP and JVP econmomic policies, I clearly refused to comment and said "we don't have a response, until such time as we have a government and that government announces what its economic policy will be." When the reporter went on to ask me to comment on "the part that UPFA quite rightly announced" I replied. "We shall not comment on a manifesto." Further it is preposterous of Mr. Ludduwahetty to interpret my comment that "we had hoped that the cohabitation would work" as slamming the President. In this report as well as in the subsequent report published on 22 March titled. "For World Bank teams on review," there are many inaccuracies, and quotes attributed to me are modified. We stated quite clearly to Mr. Ladduwahetty that we were prepared to go over his text to check for accuracy not least since he stated that his tape recorder was not working well. Unfortunately he chose not to take the time to do this. I view these inaccuracies with grave concern as the World Bank is an apolitical institution and I was not "expressing partisan political views" as claimed by the Freedom Polls Watch and published in the front page of the Daily News of 22 March. If I may quote our Articles of Agreement, "The Bank and its Officers shall not interfere in the political affairs of any member; nor shall they be influenced in their decisions by the political character of the member or members concerned. Only economic considerations shall be relevant to their decisions." We regard the Daily Mirror as a serious newspaper and we have found in general that you observe high standards of journalism, especially in the Fianancial Times. It is therefore with regret that we have been compelled to bring to your attention this unfortunate slip from your normal standards. |
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