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President Mugabe

AFRICAN Development Bank presidential candidate Thomas Zondo Sakala yesterday paid a courtesy call on President Robert Mugabe at his Munhumutapa offices to appraise him on his campaign to land the powerful post at the continental bank.The Southern African Development Community (Sadc), whose chair is President Mugabe, has endorsed Sakala, 59, a Zimbabwean, as its candidate for the post of AfDB president.

The AfDB will at the end of May this year hold elections to replace incumbent president Donald Kaberuka who is stepping down after serving two five year terms.

Sakala, a seasoned development banker, who was accompanied by Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa to meet President Mugabe, said his vision was to take the bank to higher levels of success.

“It was an opportunity to meet with the leadership and thank them for the trust they have shown in accepting to present me as a  candidate first to Sadc and then to the African Development Bank,” Sakala told reporters after the meeting.

“Basically what is important to underscore is that the bank is a successful institution on the African continent, it has come a long way, it has achieved a lot and my objective, having been part of the management that also helped to bring it to where it is now, is to ensure that there’s no reversal, no slowdown in the progress that has been made.”

Sakala, who has worked for the AfDB for the past 31 years, said he had, during the meeting, “asked His Excellency (President Mugabe)  to thank his colleagues in Sadc for this opportunity that they’ve given me and Zimbabwe.”

Voting for the AfDB president will be on the basis of shareholding.

African countries own 60 percent of the continental bank while other outside shareholders hold the remainder. The Sadc region owns a combined 15 percent of the bank.

Sakala, who speaks both English and French proficiently, will be competing with seven other candidates from Cape Verde, Chad, Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Tunisia.

In his campaign messages, Sakala says his mission is to “sustain and enhance the transformation of the African Development Bank” through strengthening its performance and accountability and building on its 10-year strategy running from 2013 to 2022.

Deepening dialogue, networking and communication within the bank and with its external partners will also be a key target, he says.

Areas that will be given special attention include infrastructure, gender, governance and resource mobilisation as well as “greening African economies.”