The Ethics Committee of the Board of Directors of the African Development Bank (AfDB), charged with investigating charges brought by a group of employees of the institution against Akinwunmi Adesina, president of the bank, has issued its report.
Dr Akinwumi Adesina, President, AfDB
Adesina had last month described as spurious and unfounded an allegation by a group 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 now, he 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 3 March, 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 10 February and 10 March, 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 advice department.