Governance starts at home, Ibrahim tells World Bank Group President

Governance starts at home, said Mo Ibrahim, a Sudanese-British businessman and President of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation at the Africa: The Digital Innovation Engine summit a few days ago.

In conversation with World Bank Group President Ajay Banga in the session Navigating The Next Frontier For African Tech, Ibrahim pointed out the governance laxness in the functioning of the World Bank in his closing remarks.

“We think your bank if it’s listed in any Stock Exchange [you] would have been delisted because your governance is no good,” he said. “Secondly we never heard of a board of any company, any Bank, anybody who lives[s] in the premises with their staff. What is that?”

“Then I heard they (the board) have two meetings every week now. I ran a company before, [and] when I have a board meeting, [it] is a nightmare for my staff to have to repair the reports… we’re not doing any work… we’re preparing for the board.”

“Those guys have two board meetings a week,” he said. “When you’re going to have time to do your work.”

He reiterated that the cost of the board to the bank is over $100 million a year and that the same amount could be used to educate one million children in Africa. 

“Your mission is to alleviate poverty. 100 million dollars a year will educate one million child[ren] in Africa every year. That is development now,” he said. “Then those guys come to Africa and preach to us about governance, excuse me, governance starts at home. Please pass this message to your board. Governance starts at home.”

The summit was co-organised by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), and CGEM — an organisation representing the enterprises of Morocco.