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Chinelo Obogo
The United States Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin has called for an independent investigation intoallegations of favoritism against Nigeria’s former Agric Minister and current president of the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina, and rejected plans by the bank’s board to end the probe, Bloomberg has said.
In a letter dated May 22 and addressed to Niale Kaba, chairwoman of the bank’s board of governors, Mnuchin said the US Treasury disagrees with findings by the bank’s ethics committee that “totally exonerated” Adesina.
The move by the Treasury, AfDB’s biggest non-African shareholder, comes two weeks after the ethics committee found no evidence to support allegations of favoritism by Adesina who has repeatedly refuted the allegations and the only candidate up for election as president at an annual general meeting scheduled for August.
“We have deep reservations about the integrity of the committee’s process. Instead, we urge you to initiate an in-depth investigation of the allegations using the services of an independent outside investigator of high professional standing.
“Considering the scope, seriousness, and detail of these allegations against the sole candidate for bank leadership over the next five years, we believe that further inquiry is necessary to ensure that the AfDB’s president has broad support, confidence, and a clear mandate from shareholders,” Mnuchin said.
Adesina was accused by a group of unidentified whistleblowers of handing contracts to acquaintances and appointing relatives to strategic positions at the bank.
The US Treasury’s demand came after the Ethics Committee of the Board of Directors of the African Development Bank (AfDB), charged with investigating charges brought against the AfDB had cleared him of any wrong doing.
Adesina had last month described as spurious and unfounded allegations by the that described itself as concerned staff members of the bank that he violated the code of conduct of the institution.
According to him, the bank had a very high reputation for good governance and is rated as the fourth most transparent institution in the world by Publish What You Fund.
In an 18-page petition, the concerned staff members had listed the alleged cases of breach of code of conduct by Adesina to include unethical conduct, private gain, an impediment to efficiency, preferential treatment, involvement in political activity, among other activities they alleged to have adversely affected the confidence and integrity of the bank.
The complainants had also enumerated twenty areas where they allege Adesina had violated the code of conduct of the AfDB and the efforts made to draw the attention of the Ethics Committee to the issues in line with the bank’s whistle-blowing policy.
But the Ethics Committee of the Board of Directors of the AfDB in a report on May 5, exonerated Akinwumi Adesina of all charges against him.
Kaba Nialé, chair of the Board of Governors, who must now decide whether to close the case or to conduct a new investigation.
In a letter accompanying the report, which Jeune Afrique has been able to consult, she proposes “to adopt the conclusions of the investigation by declaring that the president is entirely exonerated of all allegations made against him”.
The AfDB Ethics Committee is headed by Takuji Yano, the institution’s Japan Executive Director.
For several weeks Adesina has been under intense pressure. In their complaint submitted to the governors in early April, the whistleblowers had raised serious doubts about the AfDB’s ability to conduct an independent investigation.
“On March 3, six weeks after our initial complaint, we concluded that the Ethics Committee was unable or unwilling to conduct a preliminary review of the complaint and that we should not have trusted it. The committee was unable to reassure us of any progress; on the contrary, attempts were made to discover our identities,” they wrote.
According to the French daily Le Monde, Takuji Yano received two very offensive letters from Adesina’s lawyer, Elie Whitney Debevoise. In these letters, dated February 10 and March 10, Debevoise accused the chairman of the ethics committee of violating the bank’s rules by sending the whistleblowers’ note to the board of directors even before he had “consulted the legal department.
