Photos: YouTube Screenshots\Afreximbank/X
The African Export-Import Bank appointed Cameroonian lawyer George Elombi as its next president and board chair. He takes over the reins amidst increased scrutiny over the lender’s approach to development financing.
Elombi, who has been at Afreximbank since 1996, succeeds Nigerian banker Benedict Oramah who has overseen the bank since 2015, in two five-year terms. The last decade has seen Afreximbank expand its lending, with assets rising to $40 billion last year. Before his appointment this past weekend at the bank’s annual meeting in Nigeria, Elombi served as the bank’s most senior executive for governance and legal services
At his victory speech on Saturday, Oramah said Afreximbank had chosen to follow “African best practices” in expanding its operations to support Africa’s needs, as against international best practices that had not done much for the continent. But his time at Afreximbank ended with a downgrade by the Fitch Ratings agency that placed the bank at a level above junk.
