Accepting the re-confirmation, Mr. Kaberuka thanked the Governors for their continued confidence in his leadership of the Bank Group: “I am humbled by the decision of the Governors for entrusting me with leading this critically important institution,” he said.

“I would like to dedicate this re-election to the management and staff of the African Development Bank. This is the victory of a team captain,” Mr. Kaberuka said after he was re-confirmed in the position.

“I was first elected five years ago. The Bank has doubled in size and quality assured. But in the next five years, we will have to consolidate on what has been done and put Africa on the international scene.”

“We will strive to meet the expectations of African people. We will work to achieve regional integration, fight against climate change and ensure food security,” he said.

The AfDB Group has made improvements in its internal operations and governance, while better focusing on its core development responsibilities in Africa, especially growth in private sector development, financing major infrastructure projects and encouraging regional economic integration.

The recently released 2010 African Economic Outlook (AEO) projects that the continent would rebound from the marked slowdown in 2009 to achieve 4.5 per cent growth in 2010 and 5.2 per cent growth in 2011. Fiscal balances and current accounts are also expected to show improvements, with inflation dropping considerably.

Because of the increase in demand for African Development Bank resources since the financial crisis, as well as the Bank’s successful record of deploying capital for infrastructure on the continent, the Governors also approved a 200% sixth general capital increase for the institution. The capital increase will allow the Bank to meet the burgeoning demand for financing projects programmes in the Regional Member Countries (RMCs).

The Bank’s efforts to decentralize and significantly improve communication and outreach with both regional countries and the private sector were also highlighted by the Governors. Under President Kaberuka’s leadership, the Bank has dramatically expanded its presence with country and regional offices throughout the continent.

Mr. Kaberuka, the seventh elected AfDB Group President, took the oath of office on September 1, 2005, in a ceremony at the institution’s Temporary Relocation Agency in Tunis, to begin his first term.

Before joining the Bank, he served as Rwanda’s finance and economic planning minister from 1997 to 2005, and has been widely acknowledged as the principal architect of his country’s successful post-war reconstruction and economic reform programme. He initiated and implemented major economic and governance reforms in the fiscal, monetary, budgetary and structural domains, including the independence of the country’s central banks. These reforms resulted in the widely acclaimed recovery of the Rwanda’s economy and sustained economic growth, which enabled the country to benefit from debt cancellations under the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative in April 2005.

Mr. Kaberuka had over 12 years experience in the banking industry, in trade and finance, in the international commodity business and in the development sector, before joining the government.

As the country’s finance and economic planning minister, the AfDB President served as Rwanda’s governor at the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the African Development Bank.

He was educated in Tanzania and the United Kingdom where he obtained his M Phil (Econ) and a PhD in Economics from the University of Glasgow in Scotland.

Mr. Kaberuka speaks English, French and Swahili fluently.

The basic principle behind the move towards IFRS by many Nations -is the need by the global marketplace to translate and determine the actual value of a firm. Foreign Investors need a reporting mechanism that allows them to compare and contrast the performance of two firms. IFRS will allow investor firms to capture material deficiencies in management practices and provide a reasonably impartial basis for making informed decisions. Look at it this way; if all companies utilize the same set of rules from an accounting and reporting perspective; one would expect a reduction in arbitrage opportunities caused by information rationing. Moving towards IFRS conveys a level of trust for the information being reported in the financial statements of many companies. This would also increase the level of foreign direct investment (FDI) in countries like Nigeria. The benefits of IFRS is laudable but the 2011 target for “Adoption” by the regulators (CBN/SEC) in Nigeria appear to be a knee jerk reach-out that has not been clearly thought out. Let’s briefly discuss why:


Most Nations that have adopted IFRS like South Africa insist that all the companies listed on there Stock Exchange market must comply with the IFRS requirement. In Nigeria the current trajectory requires that only Banks meet this requirement by 2011. The focus on banks is probably because they make up 57% of the Market Capitalization of the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE). While the weight of NSE makeup is disproportionately skewed and beckons for more diversification, it is obvious that any attempt at limiting the changes to just banks will further erode foreign investor confidence and frustrate any progress. Moreover it is not clear that the bodies that have a vested interest in this change in Nigeria are taking this very seriously. Changes of this depth should obviously be up for public scrutiny and therefore involve a continuous drive to solicit comments from all sectors of the purported economic engine within the country. Such decisions require extensive debate and explication in both national houses of assembly; and strong, well founded and dynamic financial support able to prepare the country fully before taking it (IFRS) on. As it stands at present, from all available financial and economic indicators, Nigeria appears unprepared for this change. A similar discussion is on going in the US but unlike Nigeria, the level of preparedness is great and all vested parties are at the table discussing and resolving issues with multiple scenario analysis.


Regulators in Nigeria must not loose sight of the fact that what is at stake, is not just reporting under IFRS but the soundness or integrity of the financial statements produced for global view by the international financial community. In the words of Stanley Chikwendu in an article on Nigerian Business Day Newspaper; “CBN should also go a step further in its intervention, to demand that financial statements pass the integrity test.” This test is one that Nigeria must pass if it is to compete responsibly and effectively on the global stage; a test that focuses on what is behind the numbers and gives all investors a strong base upon which to analyze a company’s performance through a financial reporting cycle.


While the last cycle have witnessed a flourish of disgusting financial misstatements, earnings padding, asset inflation, reckless margin borrowing, poor and weak corporate governance, shareholder irresponsibility and most of all, professional greed; with IFRS, the hope is that you can now compare apples to apples and not apples to peanuts. This comparison could be beneficial or it could be detrimental to our fledgling economy. Great, if it leads to more Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), increases more Private Equity (PE) investments that could lead to infrastructural growth, increase the pool of investment funds for companies in Africa to target. And if it improves Nigeria’s international integrity and corporate image – What’s wrong with that? We are of course a nation filed with a bit of destructive greed here and there; however, for the sake of integrity and progress of our financial sector, a little bit of authentic transparency open to global peer review appears to be the doctor’s prescriptions.

Africananalyst Team