24 August, 2005
Dear Mr Kejriwal, I am writing in response to your letter of 20 August, 2005 to Mr Paul Wolfowitz, President of the World Bank, regarding the proposed Delhi Jal Board reform project. In your letter and annexes, you allege wrongdoing by Bank staff in respect of award of a contract to PriceWaterhouse Coopers. These allegations seem to have taken no account of the explanation of the procurement process and rationale for the Bank’s actions that were provided in my press statement of 29 July, 2005. Since you appear to be convinced of inappropriate actions by Bank staff, I encourage you to write to the World Bank’s Department of Institutional Integrity (INT) so that they can make an independent determination of the case. For your information, INT is the internal unit designated by the World Bank Group to investigate allegations of fraud and corruption in Bank Group operations and allegations of staff misconduct. You may contact INT directly via email (investigations_hotline@worldbank.org) or access their online complaint form at the website http://www.worldbank.org/integrity. In your letter, you misquote me as saying that Delhi Jal Board needs “hand-holding” by the Bank. I fully agree with you that India has some of the best technical and managerial institutes. I am also of the view that there are many enormously talented and qualified professionals in this country, and they have my greatest respect – your suggestion that I believe otherwise is without any foundation. That however does not negate the fact that Delhi Jal Board, in its current mode of operation, is unable to meet the water and wastewater needs of the people of Delhi, especially of Delhi's poorest citizens. Delhi with a per capita water availability of more than 200 liters per day is able to provide its citizens poor quality water for only a few hours a day; in Africa and West Asia there are cities that are able to provide 24-hour supply with less than 150 liters per day; and typically, European cities provide continuous supply with a per capita availability ranging from 150 to 200 liters. In my opinion, this does suggest that change is needed in Delhi – a view that I believe most citizens of Delhi and the Delhi Government share. It is here that the Bank is willing to support the Delhi government and DJB in initiating the necessary reform process. You assert that “wherever similar Bank initiated reforms were carried out in other developing countries, water tariffs skyrocketed, water quality deteriorated, water was diverted to amusement parks and hotels and supply to the poor was cut off as they could not afford water.” Assuming that you would not make such statements without having systematic evidence, I very much hope that you will immediately publish this evidence in the interest of the transparency that you and we believe in. Information at our disposal suggests that your statement is a gross distortion of the record; while we would be the first to acknowledge that there have been failures, there have been many more successes, and you will find an assessment in the Bank’s Operations Evaluation Department report No. 26443 entitled “Efficient, Sustainable Service for All? An OED Review of the World Bank’s Assistance to Water Supply and Sanitation (September 2003)”. This can be downloaded from the OED website http://www.worldbank.org/oed/. Also, according to the Private Participation in Infrastructure database (http://ppi.worldbank.org/PPI2/Reports/Data/4sector.html), 53 low and middle-income countries had private activity in their water and sewerage sectors during 1990-2003. In those countries, 261 water and sewerage projects reached financial closure. Of these, only 15 (or 6 percent), involving models not being proposed for Delhi, were either cancelled or under distress by 2003. The statements in your letter regarding disclosure of information are also misleading. Let me repeat the points I made to you when we met and which were also contained in my press statement. As you rightly suggest in your letter, by quoting the preamble to the Bank’s Disclosure Policy, we favor transparency, accountability and openness as far as possible. The Bank’s Disclosure Policy is decided upon by our Board of Executive Directors, which includes representatives of all our member countries, including India. Under the Policy, disclosure of a number of official World Bank documents is mandatory, but this does not and cannot include unilateral disclosure by the Bank of operational correspondence with member governments or their agencies. I reiterate that we would concur with the disclosure of such correspondence if the other parties concerned wished such disclosure to take place. In short, we welcome Delhi’s Right to Information Act (and applaud Parivartan’s role in its formulation); and will concur with any disclosure that Delhi wishes to make in accordance with that legislation. We are delighted to see in today’s press that the Chief Minister has instructed that all documents related to this project be put on the DJB website, and warmly welcome her emphasis on the importance of taking the necessary time to ensure a thorough public consultation and airing of the issues before proceeding. Finally, let me say that rather than propagating serious mischaracterizations of the World Bank’s actions and intentions, I believe the interests of all citizens of Delhi, especially the poorest sections who so badly need and deserve access to better and more reliable water supply, would be better served by focusing on the difficult substantive issues in Delhi’s water supply and management that need to be overcome. Yours sincerely, Michael Carter
Country Director
India cc : Office of the President
The World Bank ************************ |
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