ISLAMABAD, March 1: The victims of the World Bank-funded Taunsa Barrage Emergency Rehabilitation and Modernization Project (TBERMP) will organize a peaceful march to Islamabad Press Club Camp Office here on Friday.

This was announced by the protesters, whose hunger strike in front of the World Bank head office entered its fourth day on Thursday. They said the march would start from the World Bank office and culminate at the press club where subsequent plans as part of the protest campaign would be announced at a press conference.

They also pointed out that 1st March was the World Bank Country Representative John Wall’s last day in office, and that he should therefore be concerned with the fact that his refusal to acknowledge the violations of the TBMERP would feature prominently in his legacy.

The SBT representative, Fazl-e-Rab Lund, said it was ironic that dozens of people from the project area were sitting outside the World Bank Headquarters on a hunger strike while grand celebrations to mark the end of John Wall’s tenure as WB country representative were taking place inside the building.

This, he said, reflected the callousness of the World Bank and exposed the claims of the institution that it was ‘pro-poor’ both in its attitude and its policies. Furthermore, he said, the World Bank was not genuinely committed to inclusiveness as was reflected by its unwillingness to recognize the legitimacy of the protests of affected people.

The SBT representatives also contested the outgoing WB country representative’s claims about the so-called inspection panel that was supposed to function as an independent accountability mechanism.

They pointed out that in recent times the affected people of the World Bank-funded Left Bank Out-fall Drain (LBOD) had filed an inspection request and that after investigation the inspection panel had concluded that there had been considerable violations of the World Bank’s own policies vis-‘-vis social and environmental impacts of the project.

However, the World Bank management simply refused to accept the findings of the inspection panel thereby making a mockery of the notion that the World Bank was committed to transparency and accountability processes.