as it rejected a call for it to pull out of those project altogether. Rashad Kaldany,
the director of the bank’s gas and mining department, told reporters the bank would require companies and countries to disclose oil payments, and to disclose publicly how the bank viewed the corruption in a country before it got a loan for an oil or gas project. The bank management still had to rework some aspects of the changes, Kaldany
said. But Nadia Martinez, an analyst at the Institute of Policy Studies, said: “The World Bank has missed a historic opportunity to bring its lending more in line with its mission.” The institute has been critical of the bank’s approach in developing nations. US companies, including Halliburton and Exxon Mobil, have benefited by World Bank involvement in projects in Chad, Azerbaijan and other countries. The World Bank approved $11billion (R68.8 billion) in loans last year. The bank’s independent review panel had recommended that it pull out of oil, gas and coal projects by 2008, saying those programmes did not benefit the poorest people in the area of the natural resources
and lead to environmental degradation.