EXCITING NEWS: TNG WhatsApp Channel is LIVE…
Subscribe for FREE to get LIVE NEWS UPDATE. Click here to subscribe!
An Independent Review Panel has completely absolved the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Akinwumi Adesina, of all corruption allegations.
TheNewsGuru recalls that the Independent Review Panel was set up by the Bureau of Governors of the Bank, following a complaint by the United States, to review the process by which two previous organs of the Bank – the Ethics Committee of the Board, and the Bureau of the Board of Governors – had previously exonerated Adesina.
The three-member Independent Review Panel include Mary Robinson, who is a former President of the Republic of Ireland, a former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Chairperson of the Elders, a global body of wise persons concerned with the world’s wellbeing; the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Gambia, Hassan B. Jallow; and Leonard McCarthy, a former Director of Public Prosecutions, a former Director for the Office of Serious Economic Offences, and a former Head of the Directorate of Special Operations of South Africa. He also served as the Vice President of Integrity for the World Bank for nine years.
In January 2020, sixteen claims of ethical misbehavior were levelled against Mr Adesina by a group of whistleblowers. The allegations which were reviewed by the Bank’s Ethics Committee of the Board of Directors in March, were described as “frivolous and without merit.” The findings and rulings of the Ethics Committee were subsequently upheld by the apex Bureau of the Board of Governors in May, which cleared Adesina of any wrongdoing.
Apart from reviewing the report of the ethics committee, the panel also appraised each of the 16 allegations by the whistleblowers and Mr Adesina’s responses to them.
The report of the Independent Review Panel states that it “concurs with the (Ethics) Committee in its findings in respect of all the allegations against the President and finds that they were properly considered and dismissed by the Committee.”
The panel exonerated Mr Adesina and stated that “It has considered the President’s submissions on their face and finds them consistent with his innocence and to be persuasive.”
The conclusions of the Independent Review Panel now clear the way for governors of the bank to re-elect Mr Adesina to a second five-year term as president during annual meetings of the bank scheduled for August 25-27.