(4 minutes read)
· US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin wanted the African
Development Bank’s board to continue investigation into its
president, Akinwumi Adesina, and stressed the need for an independent
probe into allegations leveled against is Chief Executive Officer
(CEO)
· In a recent letter addressed to Niale Kaba, chairperson of
the bank’s board of governors, Mnuchin said the US did not accept
findings by the bank’s ethics committee to “totally exonerate”
Adesina.
US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin wanted the African Development
Bank’s board to continue investigation into its president, Akinwumi
Adesina, and stressed the need for an independent probe into
allegations leveled against is Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
In a recent letter addressed to Niale Kaba, chairperson of the bank’s
board of governors, Mnuchin said the US did not accept findings by the
bank’s ethics committee to “totally exonerate” Adesina.
The US Treasury is the AfDB’s biggest non-African shareholder. The
communication from the US Treasury is coming two weeks after the
ethics committee found no evidence to support allegations of
favoritism by Adesina. The 60-year-old bank chief has repeatedly
refuted the allegations, which failed to cut ice with the US.
Incidentally, he is the only candidate for election as president. The
election will take place at an annual general meeting scheduled for
August.
The US has a 6.5% stake in AfDB and the second largest shareholder
after Adesina’s home country of Nigeria as of November 2019. Many
African heads of states have favored his candidature for the second
term and many thought his would be an unanimous election was a
foregone conclusion.
Unidentified whistleblowers point out that the AfDB CEO used to
handout contracts to acquaintances. He is also blamed for appointing
relatives to strategic positions at the Abidjan-based lender. US
criticism of the bank’s internal processes follows comments by World
Bank President David Malpass in February that multilateral lenders
including the AfDB tend to provide loans too quickly, and, in the
process, add to African nations’ debt problems. The bank rebutted the
statements as “inaccurate and not fact-based”.
AfDB’s shareholders are Africa’s 54 nations and 27 countries in the
Americas, Europe, Middle East and Asia. In March, the bank issued a
US$3 billion social bond to help African countries deal with the
fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. A US $10 billion
crisis-response facility for African nations has been another
initiative of the bank.
