The arcane and increasingly heated battle for the chair of the African Development Bank (ADB) came to South Africa this week when Rwandan Minister of Finance Donald Kaberuka attended the World Economic Forum’s Africa summit in Cape Town.
Kaberuka and Nigerian Olabisi Ogunjobi are the last of six candidates still in the race. Voting will take place next month at the ADB’s headquarters in Tunis.
”I’ll win it for sure,” a confident sounding Kaberuka told the Mail & Guardian this week. ”I have very strong support in the non-regional members and promises of increased support among the African members.”
Kaberuka cannot be accused of hubris. He spent extra time in Cape Town lobbying business and political leaders. And he arrived in South Africa having courted Francophone West African members and claims support from Eastern and Southern Africa.
South African official sources, speaking anonymously said Kaberuka got the nod as soon as former Zimbabwean minister of finance Simba Makoni fell out in the third round.
”I bring eight years of the most incredible experience as finance minister,” said Kaberuka. ”I inherited the economy of a country ruined by the genocide of 1994 and turned it into one of the fastest growing economies on the continent.
”This experience is extremely relevant to Africa, which is trying to pick up the pieces of its past. Our major achievement has been getting a complete debt write off from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
”It’s all about economic reform, right management and delivery. And I have shown that I can do that.
”This is certainly recognised by the international community through the votes of non-regional members,” he said in reference to the 24 non-African countries brought into the process back in 1982.
Ogunjobi’s backers are trying to play his non-African support against him, painting him as a lackey of Washington, Tokyo and London.
”You can bet that in Paris last week, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo made a strong pitch for French support for Ogunjobi,” a well-placed European diplomat said.
”The Nigerians play hardball. Once again we see them produce the ”real-African” card in trying to discredit Kaberuka.
”South Africa would do well to take notice should they ever have to battle it out for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.”
Zimbabwe newspapers reported that in an earlier round of the ADB contest Nigeria tried to buy off Makoni by promising him its backing as head of the Economic Commission for Africa.
In the event the President Robert Mugabe millstone was just too much for the Zimbabwean candidate, particularly among non-regional members.