This Committee oversees investigations conducted by the Bank's Internal Audit Department, Office of Professional Ethics, or any outside investigator appointed by the Bank Group, and for any matter involving fraud or corruption referred to it by the World Bank President. The Committee consists of members of the Internal Audit Department, the Office of Professional Ethics, and Human Resources, and is chaired by the Deputy General Counsel, Administration, Finance, and Institutional Affairs. To help ensure that allegations of fraud and corruption are reported, we have also set up a telephone hotline with multilingual capabilities, which operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It is available for use by Bank group staff and the public. The hotline is operated by an outside firm of trained specialists working under the strictest standards of confidentiality.
Callers can choose to remain anonymous.
All hotline reports are turned over to the Oversight Committee. Cases that require further investigation are then sent to the appropriate unit for investigation. Additionally, in early 1998, the Bank's Internal Audit Department established a team within its unit with fraud and corruption investigation skills. Currently, the team is managed by an Internal Audit staff members and consists of three white collar fraud investigators as consultants, a group of forensic accountants and specialist investigators from Price Waterhouse Coopers, and several Bank staff. In some cases, outside investigators were hired to provide forensic services.