A computer glitch has put some of the World Bank's employees in the same position as millions of Russians - they have not been paid.

In a parallel to the situation facing one of its biggest borrowers, bank officials said this week some 200 short-term contract workers had not received pay-checks this summer. But they said the problems, caused after the bank switched accounting systems, would be resolved this week.

"Out of 22,000 payments that have been processed, there were delays to 200 of them," one official said. "Most of these 200 have been cleared up and the balance of them will be within the week."

Bank workers who had not been paid included summer interns and other contract staff. "It's the people who can least afford not to get paid," the official said.

Wage delays have long been a pressing economic problem for millions of workers and pensioners in Russia and other former Soviet republics. Workers receive their pay several months late, if at all, and successions of governments have been unable to resolve the problem.

The World Bank has some 11,000 full-time workers, plus what the official said was a "movable feast" of consultants and contract workers who are employed for days, weeks or months.