The President of the African Development Bank (AfDB) is set for re-election, even as expectations are high for him to unite AfDB’s member countries after a corruption probe carried out by an independent panel declared him innocent.
Mr. Akinwunmi Adesina would be voted in during a 2-day meeting starting on Wednesday. He would be seeking to unite the members of the multilateral bank to support a programme aimed at stabilizing African economies which have been heavily affected by the pandemic. Already, AfDB has raised $100 billion for the scheme.
Last month, Nairametrics reported that the investigative panel set up to review an earlier Ethics Committee report which found Adesina not guilty but was rejected by the US, exonerated him of all charges.
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The panel reviewed about 16 allegations in total and dismissed all of them, agreeing with the Ethics Committee’s findings. The Ethics Committee’s findings were not accepted by the United States, promoting a setup of the investigative panel with the mandate to review the submissions of the ethics committee of the bank.
Adesina was accused of unethical conduct, questionable appointments, and contract awards by a group of whistleblowers. However, he was cleared of all charges by the AfDB’s ethics committee. The AfDB said it supported an internal investigation that cleared Adesina, citing that there was no evidence Adesina helped secure contracts for his friends, which a whistleblower accused him of doing.
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The second-largest shareholder of the Bank, the United States, rejected the Ethics Committee report asked for an independent probe of those allegations.
The Investigative Panel cleared Adesina of all charges agreeing with the submissions of the ethics committee. In its final conclusions, the panel wrote;
“The Panel is mindful of the fact that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”. At the same time, it appears to us to be an undue burden to expect a holder of high office in an international organization, to prove a negative, in the absence of sufficient grounds. An attorney writing on behalf of the President, also argues quite correctly in our view, that a distinction should be drawn between alleged institutional failure at the Bank and the conduct of the president.”
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Nigeria almost doubled its voting rights in the African multilateral institution to 16.8% before the lender’s annual general meeting coming up next week, as reported by Nairametrics, which was a boost for the re-election of Adesina as the President of the African Development Bank.
Nigeria will be the top shareholder in the multilateral bank followed by Germany and the United State with 7.4% and 5.5% respectively.
