Rejoinder to your article titled “Thwarted Start of the Africa Energy Bank”

Our attention has been drawn to an article with the above title in an otherwise respectable magazine, Africa Intelligence, in which the writer, Thibaut Lanchon, tried unsuccessfully to do a hatchet man’s job of questioning the successes APPO (www.APPOsecretariat.org) and Afreximbank have recorded in their effort to establish the Africa Energy Bank. Before delving into the series of misinformation that Mr. Lanchon dished out to his readers, we would like to say that we are not at all surprised at the tone of the write up. In fact, we had expected strong opposition and attacks from the very day we announced we were committed to establishing the Africa Energy Bank, particularly from those bent on seeing Africa in perpetual dependence as well as their African agents. We know that this is the beginning of many more efforts to derail us from our mission, but we shall remain focused, and the Africa Energy Bank shall become a reality, willy nilly.

We identify seven factual errors in the 10 paragraph write up. Lanchon says that Dr. Ibrahim had said that he had managed to raise about 50% of the minimum capital required for the launch of the Bank which is ‘’supposed to compensate for the disengagement of financial institutions from the African oil sector.’’ He then said that of the minimum 450 needed to start off the Bank, APPO has been able to raise $90 million, which is 20%. What he did not say is that AEB goes beyond APPO. It is a partnership and that each partner has a certain amount to contribute to the take-off of the Bank. When we say about 50% we include the contributions of all the partners. The figure of $90 million is in the figment of imagination of the writer. APPO alone has raised over $100 million.

Another misleading claim is that “However, this amount ($60 million) remains well below the mandatory quota of $83 million set for the host country of the future bank.’’ The true situation is that np prospective host country was asked to pay more than other members. Each of the 18 APPO Member Countries was allotted $83.3 million to make up the $1.5 billion expected from APPO as equity capital. Furthermore, they are not required to pay all at once, but can pay in instalments.

A further deliberately misleading statement is that the low mobilization of member countres is due to delays in sending the establishment agreement to member countries. This is far from the truth as our members have shown unprecedented support for the Bank. In fact, nearly 70% of the funds we have raised so far we received even before we the founding institutions had finalized and signed the establishment documents. That is enough evidence of their commitment to the success of the Bank.

In his attempt to give some credibility to his misleading statements, Lanchon claims that APPO Member states have shown moderate enthusiasm in selecting the host city of the AEB, saying that while seven countries indicated interest to host the HQ, Egypt for instance withdrew because Minister Badawi expressed disinterest in the project. This could not have been further from the truth, as Egypt’s decision to withdraw from the race was taken in January 2024 while HE Badawi assumed office in early July 2024. Egypt gave as reason, the fact that it currently hosts the Afreximbank, where many APPO Member Countries are also shareholders and deserve to also host international institutions.

Finally it is interesting to note that while the writer says that AEB has offices in theory, but that its management has not yet been appointed, also acknowledges that we have hired PwC to project manage the take-off of the Bank.

As we noted from the beginning, what Lanchon has done is the beginning of many distractions that those committed to keeping Africa in perpetual dependence will continue to do to us. But we will not be distracted. We shall remain focused so that Africa can use its God-endowed resources for its people. For too long we have produced energy for others. It is time for us to produce energy for our own people and we will do this with or without external support.    

We would like to advise the editors at Africa Intelligence to strive to sustain the credibility their magazine has tried, with some good level of success, to build over the years and if their writers need clarifications, they should not hesitate to make necessary contacts. 

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of African Petroleum Producers Organization (APPO).