THE World Bank plans to set up an international advisory group to advise on poverty reduction programmes linked to a major oil project in Chad. A World Bank source in N’Djamena said the members would be independent people chosen by an internal World Bank monitoring committee and they would report directly to World Bank President James Wolfensohn. Chad’s government sees no need for such a body. ”There are enough structures in place already to see that the project is properly executed,” a source close to the energy ministry said, adding that paying the members of such an international body would drive up costs. The 3.5bn project involves a pipeline that will take oil from Chad to the port of Kribi in Cameroon. The World Bank, whose funding was crucial to the private sector-led project, only gave the go-ahead in June after extra studies to address the concerns of environmental and human rights groups, worried about the impact of the pipeline. It also wanted to make sure that the oil revenue would be properly accounted for and used to reduce poverty. – Reuters