At the World Bank's new West and Central Africa Region, do all the appointments really revolve around cases of alleged corruption in the DRC, including the train accidents in the former Katanga that killed several people there in April and May 2014? It should be remembered that the World Bank has never denied the Article of Financial Afrik of April 2018 which reported the games and positions of the actors around this case. Is it because the keystone of international development institutions is not able to produce an end-of-survey memorandum? Because there would never have been an investigation into this case? Because the logic of suffocation would govern operations in Central and West Africa? Spotlight on the latest appointments.

We know that Eustache Ouayoro, who was Director of Operations there at the time of these accidents, was dismissed in July 2015, just a few months before his retirement, following an investigation by EBC (in charge of ethics and business conduct) that this same department of the World Bank had me. tried to suffocate me (see the judgment of the administrative court of the World Bank following the complaint of the whistleblower René Michel Bauman, who has since been dismissed).

We also know that Eustache Ouayoro was in line with Célestin Monga, Albert Zeufack and Emmanuel Pinto Moreira. Emmanuel Pinto Moreira had been taken to the DRC as Senior Economist by Eustache Ouayoro, Makhtar Diop being then Vice President Africa and the late Jan Walliser, his number 2 as Director of Strategies and Operations. Emmanuel Pinto Moreira was promoted by Eustache Ouayoro to a position created from scratch in the DRC under conditions never elucidated.

These three people collaborated to set up a program of events called "Conferences on Growth in the DRC" with the support of Eustache Ouayoro and the DRC government at the time. The said program was set up after Célestin Monga left the World Bank (officially for health reasons, with the support of his then boss, Makhtar Diop) while he was the subject of EBC investigations. The man who claimed to be ill had then found refuge at UNIDO.

Clan logic or meritocracy?

The reconstituted band wanted to organize a cycle of big-budget events, only one of which could take place in June 2013, with Eustache Ouayoro, Albert Zeufack and Emmanuel Pinto Moreira on the side of the World Bank and Célestin Monga on the side of UNIDO. In the end, there was only one of these events, with the brutal fall of Eustache Ouayoro, finally dismissed from the World Bank for "serious ethical breaches". Albert Zeufack was subsequently appointed Chief Economist of the Africa Region by Makhtar Diop. Célestin Monga left UNIDO to become Vice President and Chief Economist of the African Development Bank (AfDB). For his part, Emmanuel Pinto Moreira dropped the moorings of his position at the World Bank to dock at the African Development Bank as director thanks to his former colleague, partner and friend, Célestin Monga, shortly before the contract of the same Célestin Monga was abruptly not renewed by Professor dissent from the AfDB.

The mysterious back and forth of Célestin Monga

Was the AfDB aware that Célestin Monga had ended up being sanctioned by the World Bank, following EBC's investigations despite his departure for UNIDO? In any case, several months after the departure of the Cameroonian economist from the pan-African institution and only a few days before the Mauritanian Ousmane Diagana left his position as Vice President for Human Resources of the World Bank for that of Vice President for Central and West Africa, one of the services of the same Ousmane Diagana, headed by Philippe Beauregard, was involved in what looks like an operation to launder Célestin Monga's CV.

Because it should be noted that Célestin Monga was prohibited from rehiring and even accessing the premises of the World Bank, which was confirmed by the Administrative Court of the Bank in a judgment rendered and published in 2015. It should also be noted that despite the sanctions imposed on Célestin Monga, he entered the premises of the World Bank to attend the Spring Meetings and the Annual Meetings of the IMF and the World Bank as a member of the Official Delegation of the President of the AfDB, in full view of his former bosses including Jan Walliser and Makhtar Diop. But also in full view of Ousmane Diagana, then Vice President of the World Bank for Human Resources, therefore in charge of the implementation of the Sanctions of the World Bank that target him. It should be noted that Eustache Ouayoro, who was subject to the same ban, did the same with the delegation of Congo, in full view of his former bosses and Ousmane Diagana, then VP of EBC, the department that had investigated him and recommended the sanctions taken against him, until Financial Afrik denounced this situation in its April 2018 article mentioned above on the cases of alleged corruption in the DRC with the fatal train accidents that occurred in the former Katanga in April and May 2014. Coincidence certainly (the opposite is excluded), a few weeks after the publication of our survey, a game of musical chairs is operated.

The name of Célestin Monga suddenly reappeared on the list of official staff of the World Bank for a few days, between the end of June and August 2020 (as attested by a high-quality article by our colleagues at Jeune Afrique) before the individual finally announced his departure from the institution to "go teach at Harvard". A record delay in terms of recruitment and departure from the World Bank, whose cumbersome and slow procedures are well known.

Naye Bathily, the cherry tree on the cake

So what is behind the appointments made to the World Bank's West and Central Africa Region by and for people directly or indirectly involved in drc affairs? Ousmane Diagana, its new Vice President, has also just appointed as Head of Its External Relations, Naye Bathily, meanwhile become the wife of Makhtar Diop, ex-boss of the same Ousmane Diagana. Coincidence? She therefore becomes Senior Communications Advisor to Ousmane Diagana at the same time as she will control all official communication in this region.

It should be recalled that Makhtar Diop, former boss of Ousmane Diagana, had supported the candidacy of the same Ousmane Diagana to become Vice President of EBC, the Department of the World Bank that investigates cases of violation of ethical rules, at the same time as the World Bank was shaken by denunciations of whistleblowers. Alert on cases of alleged corruption in the DRC, targeting managers of the institution, directly and indirectly. These denunciations also targeted Makhtar Diop and Jan Walliser who was his number 2 in the Africa region, before becoming VP (Equitable Growth). Ousmane Diagana, Makhtar Diop and Jan Walliser subsequently supported the appointment of Sylvie Dossou as manager of investigations at EBC while the same Sylvie Dossou had been targeted by the denunciations of the same whistleblowers on cases of alleged corruption in the DRC.

It should be remembered, Sylvie Dossou was the number 2 of Eustache Ouayoro, as Resident Representative of the World Bank in the Republic of Congo. It also seems that his contract at the World Bank was not going to be renewed until at the last moment, Makhtar Diop suddenly landed in Brazzaville to announce to the press, from the airport, that Sylvie Dossou was assigned to Libreville, whereas the applicant had not yet been officially informed. The announcement was not yet made on the World Bank's website and had not also been communicated to staff, as the World Bank normally does. So why so much precipitation? Was it to prevent Sylvie Dossou from making revelations about the complicit silence of Eustache Ouayoro's superiors whose whistleblowers said they were well informed of the actions of their subordinate whom they would have tried to protect, as the Administrative Tribunal of the World Bank maintains, about Makhtar Diop, with its judgment rendered following the complaint of the whistleblower René Michel Bauman? 

Mouhamadou Moustapha N'Diaye comes out of the closet

It should also be noted that just after taking office as Vice-President of the Central and West Africa region, Ousmane Diagana immediately took Mouhamadou Moustapha N'Diaye out of the closet where Jan Walliser (then Vice President, Equitable Growth) to make him his number 2, as Director of Strategy and Operations. Important detail, Mouhamadou Moustapha N'Diaye had been appointed Director of Operations for the DRC and the Republic of Congo by Makhtar Diop, replacing Eustache Ouayoro, then under investigation into the same corruption cases in the DRC and for which, his superiors were accused of active or passive complicity by whistleblowers. Mouhamadou Moustapha N'Diaye, who was still under the orders of Makhtar Diop, was subsequently abruptly fired from his post as Director of Operations for the DRC and Congo, and urgently brought back to Washington DC, following a scandal he allegedly tried to cover in eastern DRC.

Another coincidence

The same Mouhamadou Moustapha N'Diaye has now become ousmane Diagana's number 2. Another curious coincidence, Mouhamadou Moustapha N'Diaye had been replaced in the DRC by Jean-Christophe Carret who had ensured the interim of Eustache Ouayoro (fired) while he was the Sector Leader, therefore, the direct authority under which there was the scandal of the trains of death. Jean-Christophe Carret, who had left the DRC to become a simple resident representative in Bangui, was too quickly promoted to return to the DRC as Director of Operations while Sylvie Dossou, former number 2 of Eustache Ouayoro, was appointed to EBC as number 2 of Ousmane Diagana and manager of investigations into breaches of the ethics. Wasn't all this part of the strategy of stifling investigations against their superiors? Jean-Christophe Carret was actively or passively involved as Sector Leader in the acquisition of locomotives as part of the Multimodal Transport project. In the end, isn't Mouhamadou Moustapha N'Diaye finally rewarded for stoically accepting his crossing of the desert by silencing what he knows and everything he has experienced in the DRC by taking over from Eustache Ouayoro? 
If we look at all this casting closely, we can't help but make links with these appointments: camouflage the scandals in the DRC and protect the managers involved at the Level of the World Bank? Of this gang, only Sylvie Dossou was fired from her position as manager of EBC for which Pascal Hélène Dubois had for a time ensured the interim of Ousmane Diagana when the latter was appointed Vice President Human Resources with immediate effect, just after the publication of the Financial Afrik article which mentioned his name and that of Sylvie Dossou. When we add the unexplained and mysterious departure from the World Bank of Pascale Hélène Dubois, the former VP of INT who was determined to reopen cases of alleged corruption and whose investigations were blocked while Ousmane Diagana was Vice President for Resources Human, one may wonder if the current president of the World Bank, David Malpass, irascible critic of the functioning of the institution when he aspired to the presidency, knows the house well? So quick to give lessons in governance to African countries, has the World Bank become a banana institution?