Ken Ofori-Atta, the Minister for Finance has said the African Development Bank (AfDB) must be unshackled to raise the necessary finances for its members.
Ofori-Atta said it is puzzling that the African Development Fund (ADF) is not in a position to go to the international capital market to raise funds.
Speaking at the African Development Bank 2022 Annual Meetings in Accra on Tuesday, he said “In designing our continent’s response strategy, we must build from our innate resilience and strengthen partnership.
“Africa Development Bank’s (AfDB’s) focus here must therefore be guided by advancing progress across a number of pillars; digitalise our society, realise the potential of raising innovative climate financing, explore possibilities to scale up social protection programmes, bring greater transparency to the methodologies of rating agencies, make progress of rechanneling of SDRs … and leverage the ADFs balance sheet to raise another capital for the continent.”
Ofori-Atta added that “we must remedy a situation where any financial institution including the Bretton Woods has a deeper foothold on our continent than our own AfDB.
He said giving the local and international dynamics, it has become imperative that Africa vigorously mobilise resources through innovative means including from the digital space.
“We must simply uncover this potential to recover and build forward better. This bank (AfDB) must be unshackled to raise competitive finances for its members.
New dawn
“We must lend support to the proposed reforms in respect of the regulation around the ADF funds to enable the bank to leverage these funds to raise more funds and lend at lower rates to all of our countries,” he added.
Ofori-Atta said “We must rethink and address this in the face of the present challenges that confront us on the ADFs 50th anniversary our aim must be to raise a further US$50 billion in the next five years in the capital market.
“Such an ambition is bold and courageous to signal a new dawn for the bank,” he added.
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