This incredible case of financing by direct agreement that wets a Swiss multinational met with objections internally before being released. The Syngenta case, commonly known as the "caterpillar affair" in the corridors of the AfDB, nevertheless continues to be talked about. Exhumation of a key issue in the re-election of the AfDB President on August 27, in its facts, its dates and the relations between the actors.
In 2017, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) located in Nigeria received a $40 million grant under the African Development Bank's (TAAT) Technologies for African Agriculture Transformation program. AfDB President Akinwumi Adesina is a former IATI employee, alongside Martin Fregene, also a former employee of the same institute, whom whistleblowers present as his brother-in-law (which he denied) and whom he recruited to the AfDB in 2015. First as a consultant, advisor and then director.

September 1, 2015, the day Adesina takes office as AfDB President. Martin Fregene on the far right, his wife in red, Adesina's in yellow. The father of the ladies on the far left.
At the time the TAAT funding proposal was approved in November 2017, Mr Martin Fregene was an Advisor to the Vice-President of Agriculture, Jennifer Blanke, who resigned on tiptoe as soon as the whistleblower crisis erupted.

Mr. Chiji Ojukwu was Director of the Department of Agriculture and Agribusiness. The project manager was Jonas Chianu. The division head currently responsible for the project is Andrew Mude, an alumnus of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), who is also part of the CGIAR network which includes 15 agricultural research centres including IATI. And the department director, the division head as well as the project manager are all Nigerian.

"After the approval of the $5 million project, Mr. Fregene appears to have decided that funds from the approved grant for the TAAT program should be used to purchase an insecticide for seed treatment," reads the whistleblowers' lawyer's note that was not taken into account. by the panel of experts.

Where we discover the fall armyworm
Although fall armyworm control is mentioned in the TaAT program document approved by Council, there is no mention of the purchase of an insecticide for seed treatment in any of the components of the approved project. Misdirection? This is just the beginning. Very quickly, the Swiss multinational Syngenta was chosen to supply its brand of insecticide for seed treatment, Fortenza Duo, to farmers in some countries of the SADC region, "allegedly" to fight the fall armyworm. The whistleblowers' lawyer believes that no competitive selection procedure had been conducted in this first batch of $ 5 million entering the global program of "Feed Africa" or "Feed Africa", one of the axes of the High Five. This is indeed a direct purchase contrary to the financing agreement.

Even more mind-boggling, the selection of the supplier would have been made by Martin Fregene then working for the AfDB. An overrun of function expected that the bank, as a financing institution, does not choose the suppliers contractually linked to the beneficiaries of the financing. Mr. Fregene went much further than Syngenta's selection, negotiating the terms of the contract, including prices. The multiple hats of this affable character in this case violate the elementary rules of any financial institution.

When questioned, the Bank's internal departments opposed the procedure, as financial Afrik is reminded. For good reason, the non-competitive procurement request had been made by the Bank's Department of Agriculture and Agro-Industry and not by the beneficiary's executing agency. In addition, the proposed procurement was not part of the TAAT project as approved by the Commission. In addition, the Board of Directors has prohibited any direct procurement.

One possible solution was to submit a change to the project and its direct procurement methodology for approval by the Executive Board, with appropriate justifications. Going back to the Board would be too complicated. The Operations Committee chaired by the First Vice-President will not do so, opting, at its meeting on November 21, 2018, to exclude any return to the Board of Directors. The Operations Committee's decision was that IATI should proceed with the selection through a restricted call for tenders.

 
A restricted tendering process will be launched by IATI in December 2018. But it was also deemed defective and had to be cancelled for lack of compliance with the basic requirements. At the insistence of the Acquisitions Department, a second competitive bidding process was launched by IATI on 29 January 2019. This time, IATI gave potential bidders only two weeks (instead of six weeks) to make their bids.

Syngenta had delivered its products before its selection: what assurance!
Of the eight potential bidders who purchased the documents, only three submitted bids. The lowest bid was made by the South African company Du Pont de Nemours. In addition to being competitive on price, the South African company had an unstoppable technical argument: the active chemical ingredient in Fortenza Duo insecticide, cyantraniliprole, is under its license.

However, Fregene and IATI tried to disqualify Du Pont de Nemours' offer and award the contract to Syngenta, the whistleblowers' lawyer reports. Although the Acquisitions Department's objections to the reasons given for disqualifying Du Pont de Nemours remained unanswered, on 2 April 2019 Mr Fregene's department communicated the Bank's non-objection to IATI for the award of the contract to Syngenta.

In fact, Syngenta had already delivered the products on that date since it officially complained to the administrator representing Switzerland that it had not been paid even though it had delivered the products. How can the African Development Bank (AfDB) approve and validate such a market? What is the objective part in this big file knowing that the current boss of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Nteranya Sanginga, was the boss of a certain Akinwumi Adesina? Fortunately, the ethics committees and the panel of experts do not deal with coincidences, it is believed that their conclusions have raised eyebrows among more than one Governor of the AfDB.

 
The revelation that the products had already been delivered by Syngenta, even before its official selection, threw the cold internally and pushed for an audit properly presented to the human resources department. Given the many irregularities associated with this market, the Bank is required to declare the acquisition non-compliant and to request IATI to return all funds paid by the Bank. To date, we have not talked about it. The case had a first-class burial and neither the ethics committee, let alone the panel of experts, required an autopsy of the caterpillar. In this case, millions of AfDB dollars were devoured by the Fall armyworm.

The handsome Mr. Martin Fregene
Pinned by an audit report and by whistleblowers, Mr. Fregene escapes unscathed, because of his close links with President Adesina who took him to the Bank as soon as he took office. A trusted man, Adesina's true fake brother-in-law is believed to be the person who signed a contract with author Leon Hesser for the authorized biography of the President published in September 2019. The rise of this handyman within the AfDB was dazzling, rising to the position of Director of Agriculture and Agribusiness almost two months before the departure of the outgoing Director. The audit report on human resources management (case n° 1 of section 2.6, pages 31-32) highlights this meteoric rise in violation of the bank's rules. But what is the point of an audit report in a bank where the board of directors seems to be absent itself?

Who authorized the payment?
That is the fundamental issue in this matter. "If the President has authorized the derogations from the Bank's fiduciary control mechanisms, he must then state his authorization and justify them," fumes the whistleblowers' lawyer who is struggling to find an interlocutor within the AfDB.

If President Adesina did not authorize the waivers, then anyone authorized them – be it Jennifer Blanke, whose hasty departure from the AfDB for family reasons and her landing at another financial institution a few weeks later (still for family reasons?), Martin Fregene or any other person – must provide the right explanations. "It appears that staff have made some mistakes in the procurement process in their haste to deal with the disaster that is looming on the horizon proactively. " said President Adesina in his long memorandum of response to whistleblowers.