NAIJAFEED

Monday, April 16, 2012

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala concedes to Jim Yong Kim for World Bank top job

The World Bank has named a US doctor, Jim Yong Kim, as its next president, despite criticism of the selection process by his only rival for the job.

While the US nominee faced a challenge for the first time ever, the World Bank's most powerful shareholders, the US, Europe and Japan, came out in support on Monday for the Korean-American who now holds the powerful job of doling out money to developing countries.

Before the meeting of World Bank directors, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria's finance minister, herself a veteran of the institution, criticised the way the US has held a lock on the position since the organisation was launched.

"You know this thing is not really being decided on merit," she said in Abuja. "It is voting with political weight and shares and therefore the United States will get it."

A third candidate, Jose Antonio Ocampo, the Colombian former finance minister, dropped out on Friday also complaining that the selection process was purely political and not merit-based.

There had been some hopes from critics of the bank that the powerful emerging BRICS economies - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - might coalesce around Okonjo-Iweala. But those were scotched when Moscow on Friday publicly endorsed Kim.

'Democratic tenets'

By a tacit agreement dating to the sister institutions' founding, the US has always chosen the World Bank head while Europe supplies the leader of the International Monetary Fund.

But like the leadership succession last year at the IMF, the race to head the Bank has sparked muscle-flexing by newly empowered emerging economies and poorer countries which have called for a more open process based on merit.

"We have come some way because it's no longer in the smoke-filled rooms of Europe and the US that the spoils are shared between the IMF and World Bank positions, between those two centres of power," Pravin Gordhan, South African finance minister, said on Monday.

"This time the invitation was open to anybody to nominate a candidate. [But] "the question is whether the process subsequent to that ... has followed through on basic democratic tenets."

South Africa endorsed Okonjo-Iweala's quest to succeed president Robert Zoellick, the former US diplomat who will leave at the end of his five-year term in June.

Health experience

The executive board met on Monday to select Kim, whom the Bank said was chosen by "consensus".

The position is crucial for much of the developing world. The president oversees a staff of 9,000 economists, development experts and other policy specialists, and a loan portfolio that hit $258bn in 2011, including $43bn in new loans and grants.

Despite the grumbling from outside the US-Europe axis, the appointmemnt of Kim, a medical doctor with deep experience fighting HIV/AIDS in developing countries and head of prestigious Dartmouth College, marks a significant change from the American bankers and diplomats who have been tapped to lead the bank in the past.

But critics worry Kim's experience is not broad enough to handle all of the fields the World Bank deals with, from infrastructure development to environmental protection.

Kim has travelled to around a dozen countries to introduce himself, however, apparently convincingly enough to earn solid respect.

Aljazeera

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New World Bank president to be known today

A successor to the out-going President of the World Bank, Mr. Robert Zoellick, will emerge Monday between 5pm and 7pm (12 noon and 2pm Washington DC time), when the results will be announced.

This will be preceded by the gathering of the 25-member executive board of the bank from 3pm (10am Washington DC time) to pick Zoellick's successor.

The race for the presidency of the Bretton Woods institution had been narrowed down to two candidates - Nigeria's Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and Dr. Jim Yong Kim, a Korean-American Physician and United States' nominee - after the former Colombian finance minister, Jose Antonio Ocampo, withdrew his candidacy at the weekend.

In fact, Ocampo had thrown his weight behind the Nigerian finance minister, describing her as an "excellent candidate". Zoellick's tenure expires on June 30.

The US, which is the bank's largest shareholder, traditionally picks the bank's president. The country, Europe and Japan have 54 per cent of the votes.

Under an informal arrangement, in return, Europe appoints a European as head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a sister Bretton Woods' institution. It is currently run by Frenchwoman, Christine Lagarde.

According to the World Bank's Articles, the president is the chief operating officer of the bank and conducts, under the direction of the executive directors, the ordinary business of the bank. The bank's president is also responsible for the organisation, appointment and dismissal of the officers and staff, subject to the general control of the executive directors.

US' choice of Kim has been greeted with mixed feelings. Some commentators argued that he lacks experience in boosting economic growth, a key part of the bank's mission.

Observers had been curious that Kim had not even appeared on any major American interview. It had been suggested that his handlers were worried that he might make a slip, which would bring the issue of merit to the fore once again.

"That is why they have resulted to issuing press releases about his visits to different parts of the world," one of them noted.

However, Okonjo-Iweala, who had also served as managing director of the multilateral institution, has the support of other emerging economies.

The Bretton Woods institution, founded in 1944 has 187-member countries. US, France, Germany, Japan and United Kingdom - who are the five largest shareholders - appoint five executive directors, while China, Russian Federation and Saudi Arabia each elects its own executive director, with other executive directors elected by the other member countries.

This is the first presidential election with 25 voting members as one more member was added on November 1, 2010. Similarly, this is the first time that a candidate from a developing nation is challenging a US nominee for the plum job.

Okonjo-Iweala when interviewed by the World Bank board last week promised to tackle global poverty and address issues of job creation if elected.

She also advised the US to end the long tradition of an American always heading the Bretton Woods institution, saying that the decision on who leads the global development institution should go to the candidate with the best skills for the job.

The finance minister had also dismissed the argument by some US politicians that the American country would stop financing the World Bank if a non-American took the reins of the institution. She said she would use her "persuasive powers" to convince Congress to keep funds flowing to the World Bank.

On his part, Kim, had during the interview session with the board of directors of the bank, said that he would not hesitate to question the status quo and do his best to help the world's poorest countries.

Kim had said: "I would bring rigour; objectivity and a focus on data that help all of us define and achieve our shared vision of securing strong economic growth and delivering greater opportunity for the world's poor."

It has been a widespread belief that the strategy the US adopted for the World Bank presidency had played down merit, contrary to the standards and principles which the multilateral institution champions.

Analysts however expressed the belief that the major thing that Nigeria had achieved in the whole process was that- with the issue of merit in the fore, candidates from the developing economies for subsequent elections, will be strengthened the more, to come forward and push for merit.

More importantly, they added, the campaign had sensitised the world and it would be difficult for the US to retain the position, based on power politics.

This Day

Video - Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala speaks to CNN's Richard Quest about her bid for World Bank top job

Nigeria's finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in the running for chief of World Bank

New York Times supports Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala for World Bank president

Britain to spend ₤50 million improving Nigerian security

The British government is to spend 50 million pounds (equivalent N12.6 billion) to improve security in Nigeria, said the National Programme Manager of Justice for All Initiative, Bob Arnot.

Speaking at the Justice for All (J4A) and Nigeria Police Force (NPF) technical working group induction workshop weekend in Abuja, Arnot said the UK government is planning to increase the initial 30 million pounds budget to 50 million pounds within the five years earmarked for the programme.

He said the programme was intended to facilitate changes in law enforcement and the judiciary. "Since 2010, we have been working on this new programme, we are trying to facilitate change in institutions like the NPF, which people within those institutions already know is necessary, " he said.

He said the programme would also assist the NPF to strategize changes and developments in four component areas; community policing by creating model police stations, planning with all the departments at police head quarters to achieve desired objectives, helping the NPF to be more accountable to the public, and working with vigilante groups to ensure they work within the ambit of the law.

Speaking at the forum, Professor Olu Ogunsakin, a lead consultant on policing service said: "The programme is to assist the police in developing internal processes and building new sets of relationships with the community.

"The objective of the British council initiative is to assist the NPF to become a world class police organization," he said.

Deputy Police Commissioner in charge of community policing Austin Ewar said the programme was structured to key into current security challenges; developing new policing strategies and management system to enable the police meet its mandate.

The Justice for All programme is sponsored by UK aid from the Department of International Development (DFID).

Daily Trust

Canada to invest in Nigeria's power sector

Nigerian government to ban foreign medical trips by civil servants

The federal government is to ban public officers from traveling abroad for medical treatment, the Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, told journalists, in Abuja, yesterday.

He said that the manner Nigerians travel abroad for medical treatment is not acceptable and that he is preparing a memo for the Federal Executive council, FEC, which will stop public officers from wasting public funds on foreign medical trips.

The only exception, according to him, will be a situation where the capacity to handle such a medical problem does not exist in Nigeria.

In the event that a public officer insists on foreign medical trip, public funds will not be used and the person has to bear the cost, as a private individual, Prof. Chukwu explained.

His words, "I am preparing a memo which will soon be presented to the council to stop public officers from foreign medical treatment. If a public officer says no, I don't want treatment in Nigeria, I want to travel abroad for treatment, no problem, you are free but you will not use public funds for that so long as it can be done in Nigeria".

The minister regretted that fraudulent slant has even been introduced into the issue of foreign medical trips whereby criminally minded doctors connive with foreign hospitals to rip-off Nigerian patients by referring such patients to those foreign hospitals and agree with such Nigerian doctors to be paid between 10-15 per cent of the medical bills as kickback.

"The other reason why people go abroad is the one that is the most disturbing to me as Hon. Minister of Health. What is it? Some unscrupulous doctors and other health practitioners because of money being made conspire with foreign practitioners.For instance, if Prof. Chukwu as a doctor, refers you to some of these countries, 10 -15 per cent of whatever money you pay there comes back to me. So is now a commercial motivation. So once you tell them that you have a chest problem, they will say aah, you have a heart disease and then they will refer you. It is as bad as that", he said.

Doctor Chukwu also noted that many doctors, health professionals and patients themselves are ignorant of medical facilities and expertise available in the country and that some of the cases for which many people travel abroad can be effectively treated in Nigeria.

"As Honourable Minister of Health, none of my relatives has been referred abroad."

Vanguard

Foreign oil workers in Nigeria highest paid in the world

Egypt narrowly escape defeat from Nigeria

Egypt defeated Nigeria 3-2 in a friendly game that was held Thursday 12/4/2012 in Dubai.

The game came within the Pharaohs' preparations for the qualifiers of the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations and the 2014 World Cup.

The Nigerian team broke the deadlock in the eighth minute of the game, thanks to a strike by Sunday Mba.

Egypt's Midfielder Ahmed Temsah equalized for the Egyptian side in the 25th minute. Eight minutes later, Mohamed Abou-Treika added the second goal by converting a penalty, giving Egypt a first-time lead.

Kalu Uche equalized for the Nigerian team only two minutes before the break.

At the injury-time, Ahmed Hassan Mekki added the third goal, giving Egypt a 3-2 win over Nigeria.

SIS