The panel's report was sent, on Monday, to the chairperson of the Bureau of Governors of the bank. PREMIUM TIMES reported how the Independent Review...
The panel’s report was sent, on Monday, to the chairperson of the Bureau of Governors of the bank, Niale Kaba.
On 1 July 2020, the Chairperson announced the selection of a High-Level Panel of Independent Experts to conduct that Review. The members are: Mrs Mary Robinson, Chair, Justice Hassan B Jallow and Mr Leonard F McCarthy. Secondly, in the interests of due process, the Panel will consider the submissions made by the President to the Ethics Committee.a) The Code of Conduct for Executive Directors was adopted by the Board of Directors of the Bank on 25 April 2001. It has been amended on a number of subsequent occasions. It did not, as originally adopted, apply to the President.
b) The Ethics Committee is not assigned any express role in respect of the Policy. However, Section 2.2 states that: “The Auditor General is designated as the advocate for whistleblowers and is authorized to implement this Policy. The Anti-Corruption and Fraud Investigation Division in the Office of the Auditor-General shall be responsible for undertaking investigations under this Policy.
c) The whistle-blowers replied on 7 February, stating: “This has never been our intention to provide evidence of our allegations….” They gave two reasons for declining to provide evidence. Firstly, they said that “most of them,” presumably meaning evidence in support of the allegations “would expose [their] identity.” Secondly, they added that they feared that “the validity of such evidence would ultimately be contested because obtained illegally.
i) The Auditor General. The Committee also invited the Auditor General to attend its meetings with a view to finding out which, if any, of the whistle-blowers’ complaints had been audited by his office. As already noted, the Auditor General had formerly been authorised to implement the Whistle-Blowing and Complaints Handling Policy. However, the Auditor General had not received the whistle-blowers complaints, which had been sent to PIAC, until they were supplied to him by the Committee.
The Committee decided to continue its deliberations at its next meeting on 9 April in relation to complaint number 4, which concerned alleged mismanagement of an agricultural programme and complaint number 10 concerning awards received by the President and potential costs borne by the Bank for such awards.
The TAAT was validly approved by the Board of Directors. Although its discussions with PIAC revealed that there was an ongoing investigation, potentially raising concerns relating to staff, no elected officer, including the President, had been shown to be implicated in any wrongdoing; a. The Ethics Committee: Under Article 18 of the Code of Conduct, as stated at Chapter III b above, the Ethics Committee, which is a Committee of the Board of Directors has “general responsibility for determining all questions relating to the Code of Conduct and for enforcing the standards set forth in the Code of Conduct.”provides for the composition and procedures of the Ethics Committee. Its members are Executive Directors of the Bank.
g. General Counsel: As recounted earlier, the Committee received both written and oral advice from the General Counsel. Particularly regarding the meaning of a preliminary examination and the interpretation of the Resolution, including references to the standard or burden of proof which lay on the complainants or whistle-blowers.
j. Consistently with this the Committee, when ruling on individual complaints, used various expressions all connoting deficiency of evidence. Most commonly, it described complaints as “unsubstantiated.” It also spoke of lack of “credible evidence” or of “solid facts or information.” These and other expressions conveyed the Committee’s view that there was either no, or no sufficient, evidence to support a complaint.
The complainants declined to provide any evidence in support of this allegation. The ECBD concluded that the allegation was unfounded and should be dismissed on the grounds that the staff rules bestow authority on the President in respect of all staff, give him the power of appointment and promotion of staff and that all structures of the Bank on appointments and promotions are advisory to the President.
cases its investigation “has uncovered elements of potential staff misconduct and potential sanctionable practices against certain companies.” However. PIAC had uncovered no evidence linking the subject of the complaints, in particular the President, under consideration to the agriculture cases. If it had, it would have reported the matter to the Committee.
The allegations made against the named individual in this respect and also the President are totally false and unfounded, and the Committee was right in dismissing them.
President @MBuhari receives President of African Development Bank , Dr. @Akin_Adesina, at the State House, Abuja. [PHOTO CREDIT: BASHIR AHMAD]proper and raise questions. Whereas, they should actually have been more categoric andtherefore agrees with the Committee in dismissing this allegation.circumstances surrounding the departure of the staff member as well as the level of the
Bank had not been found to be in any way involved with that transaction and that if he had been the matter would have been reported to the Ethics Committee given that he is anthis allegation against the President.permission of the President and the payment of what is said to be a substantial amount ofRules of the Bank has no power to refuse to accept a resignation by a staff member evenresignation.
The Committee held that this allegation is unsubstantiated and should be dismissed having regard to the briefing it received from PIAC to the effect that the staff member was not found to have been involved in any wrong doing following the outcome of the investigations on the award of the contracts. The Panel’s Conclusions regarding Report of Ethics Committee The Panel is satisfied that the Ethics Committee considered the complaints received by it on 19 January 2020 in a comprehensive and responsible manner and followed correct procedures. It considered them, both as complaints submitted pursuant to the Resolution and pursuant to paragraph 4 of the Whistle-blowers Policy. It appropriately took the advice of the General Counsel in identifying its duty.
• As a preliminary matter, the Panel notes that it appears that the confidentiality of the Bank’s procedures was compromised by virtue of the fact that both the allegations made by the whistleblowers in their complaints and the response of the President have found their way into the public domain. This is unfortunate.
In respect of complaint number 9, it should fall within the knowledge of the Board of Directors and the Board of Governors who initiated, updated, and approved the Bank’s organizational structure when the country office was established. It is alleged that the President promoted Nigeria to a fully-fledged region, giving preferential treatment to its nationals.
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