Former President of Ireland and ex-United Nations Human Right Commissioner, Ms. Mary Robinson, has accepted to be included among the panel of three that would review the report of the internal Ethic Committee of the AfDB that cleared its president, Adewunmi Adesina, of all the allegations leveled against him.
Robinson, who served as the President of Ireland between 1990 and 1997, practiced as a human right lawyer.
This followed the decision of the Board of Governors of AfDB to set up a panel of three “neutral, honest, high-calibre” persons to review the report of the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) Ethics Committee that cleared Adesina.
The setting up of the independent panel was reportedly instigated by the United States of America.
Adesina had been under investigation since April by the Office of Integrity and Anti-Corruption (PIAC) as well as the Ethics Committee and Audit and Finance Committee of the AfDB following allegations by “concerned staff members” of the bank who accused him of “various cases of alleged breaches of the code of conduct” of the bank in some appointments and several contracts “approved by Adesina’s team supposedly in violation of the AfDB’s statutory and ethical rules.”
According to The Africa Report, 16 of the allegations were documented in English while several others were made in French, including what the employees described as “unusual managerial style,” “dominance of impunity and nepotism,” “chaotic management of human resources” and the “financial waste and lack of budgetary discipline.”
The job of the panel was limited to reviewing the AfDB’s Ethics Committee report and would not involve commencing a new investigation on the allegations that were brought against Adesina by internal whistleblowers in the bank.
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