1115.org

This one is probably a little past its “use by” date. But it’s back in the news today, for some reason. And it won’t make you any sicker today than it would have two weeks ago.

Let’s make it a question-answer game.

Q: Who’s the highest paid employee in the State Department?

A: That would be Shaha Riza, the romantic interest of World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz.

And how did she come to attain this status? Apparently, the same way the neo-cons have done everything else to date: by breaking all the rules.

… Shaha Riza, who’s been romantically linked to bank President Paul Wolfowitz, has done exceptionally well in terms of salary in the last 18 months — and she doesn’t even work there.

Riza, a British citizen who was born in Tunisia and raised in Saudi Arabia, worked as a communications adviser in the bank’s Middle East and North Africa department before she was detailed to work in Karen Hughes’s public diplomacy shop at the State Department in September 2005 — while remaining on the bank’s payroll.

She left six months after Wolfowitz took over at the bank.

Just before leaving, she was promoted to a managerial-level job, which we’re told is somewhat rare. Bank records obtained by the Government Accountability Project indicate that, before Riza’s promotion, she was earning $132,660.

Under bank rules — remember, she is still on its payroll even at State — the highest raise she should have gotten in her new job would be about $20,000, according to GAP’s calculation. Instead, she got a $47,340 raise, which put her salary at $180,000.

This fiscal year, while still at State, Riza got a raise of $13,500, bringing her up to $193,590, which is $7,000 more than Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice makes. Since she is at State and not the bank, the bank’s staff rules should have allowed only about half that, GAP said. Even if she’d been at the bank and gotten the highest performance rating compared with other bank employees, she could not have gotten that big a raise, GAP said.

$7,000 more than Condi, and all tax-free.

Let it not be said there’s no accountability in the World Bank:

So we asked Wolfowitz spokesman Kevin Kellems who’s responsible for these whopping raises.

“All arrangements concerning Shaha Riza were made at the direction of the bank’s board of directors,” Kellems said.

Oh dear! This isn’t about to turn into a group sex scandal, is it?