In its August 14th, 2023 edition, the British economic and financial publication, Financial Times, conducts an inquiry into the “Fund for the Integrity of Africa,” established by the African Development Bank (AfDB) in 2016. The funds allocated to this initiative have remained unutilized.
The African Development Bank is at the center of a controversy unveiled by the Financial Times, in an article published this Monday, August 14th, 2023. The financial institution has indeed failed to implement the funds collected for seven years within the framework of its fight against corruption.
This “Africa Integrity Fund” was created in 2016 and was to finance programs contributing to the prevention, detection, and repression of corruption on the continent, and also to help investigations. This is in any case what was announced in the press release published at the time.
Endowed with 55 million dollars resulting from the various financial sanctions imposed on companies deemed to be corrupt and which had entered into agreements with the bank, this fund, which was intended to be a model for other initiatives of the same kind, was never released in seven years, acknowledged the AfDB.
According to the institution, quoted by the Financial Times, this fund did not enter into service due to risks of conflicts of interest, transparency, and implementation, during the execution process.
According to the British newspaper, these statements inherently raise questions about the efficacy of an institution that receives billions of dollars from Western nations for the execution of development projects across Africa.