Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, has charged the African Development Bank to change the narrative where other financial institutions like the Bretton Woods have taken control of development on the African continent.

According to him, the AfDB which is the largest financial institution on the continent must strengthen itself to take control of financing in the region.

Opening the ongoing 2022 Annual Meetings of the AfDB in Accra, Mr Ofori-Atta said AfDB must move fast to take control of the financing of African economies.

“We must remedy a situation where any financial institution, including the Bretton Woods, has a deeper foothold on our continent than our own African Development Bank”.

“Given the current local and global dynamics, it has become imperative that we vigorously mobilise resources through innovative means, including from the digital space. We must simply ‘uncover’ this potential to recover and build forward better”, the Finance Minister pointed out.

Furthermore, he said “this bank must be unshackled to provide competitive financing for its members. We must lend support to the proposed reforms in respect of the regulations around ADF Funds to enable the bank to leverage these funds to raise more funds and on-lend at lower coupon rates.

The 57th Annual Meeting of the Bank Group seeks to look at the resilience of the African economies and the growth of its people post COVID-19.