End of the “regime of terror” at the IDB

“There is a feeling of relief, of joy, almost jubilation, although the fear has not completely disappeared.

EL PAÍS has spoken with former and current officials and employees of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) about how Mauricio Claver-Carone's dismissal as president has been experienced within the organization due to his relationship with his chief of staff.

They point out that the climate in the bank had become unbreathable and that since the investigation was opened due to an anonymous complaint, a kind of “terror regime” had been established, with fear of reprisals.

Claver-Carone maintains that the accusations are false and that his dismissal is the consequence of a conspiracy between the Joe Biden government, China and other Latin American countries.

With Claver-Carone removed, many of those consulted are concerned about how to avert similar risks in the future.

“Hopefully reflections will be made that lead to a strengthened institution, with the appropriate checks and balances, for the benefit of the region,” says Peruvian Verónica Zavala, who was Minister of Transport and Communications in Peru before joining the IDB, from where He has left after a long career in which he has held various managerial positions.

“Institutions are tested when they are in a moment of stress.

This president had no respect for the institutions, he had a very different vision and the institutions did not work to ensure that the processes were handled properly in this presidency, ”he explained to EL PAÍS by video call.

“The important thing is that this does not happen again,” agrees Therese Turner-Jones, a Jamaican who left the IDB in April 2022 after 15 years working for the bank, where she had the category of manager, and who had more than 20 years of previous experience in the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“This case is solved.

Really, it has damaged the reputation of the institution, but it is about where we go from here, especially considering the needs of the region”, she explains.

Carola Álvarez has also held various positions of responsibility at the IDB over the last 15 years.

Beyond the "immediate and sensational" nature of the relationship that has led to the dismissal of Claver-Carone, during her tenure "a culture of retaliation was unfolded within the institution regarding any discrepancy or difference of opinion," she holds.

There were reprisals for people who published an evaluation of a program and the result was negative "because of the consequences and the inconvenience that this generated for the Trump administration," explains Álvarez.

Turner-Jones agrees: "An organization where professionals cannot do their job, cannot tell the truth and disagree or present an alternative point of view is not a dynamic organization that grows and thrives," reasons the Jamaican, who denounces "An abuse of power by the bank's management leadership that should not have been allowed."

That installed a culture of fear: “No one was talking, the conversations were taking place outside, not in the building.

That's how ridiculous it was," says Turner-Jones, noting that colleagues still at the bank seemed "depressed, despondent and demoralized."

Zavala gives a graphic example: she tweeted some of these ideas about the need for reforms and many colleagues inside the bank called her or wrote messages, but no one dared to retweet her or give a simple "like".

“If you have a G-4 visa [the one issued to international agency officials] and a family to support and you have nowhere else to go...” says Turner-Jones.

"There are people who have been removed from their position because they have put a photo on LinkedIn where there was a person that they [Claver-Carone and his chief of staff] did not like," Álvarez indicates.

“This posture of persecution and fear is what is terrible.

And furthermore, what he says is that institutional designs are not enough to have a counterweight or control for a situation where some character wants to establish this culture”.

Zavala believes that the IDB's problems went deeper than Claver-Carone's alleged romantic relationship with his chief of staff and the violations of the organization's principles in relation to it.

“In a way, it's like convicting Al Capone of cheating taxes.

There is much more behind it than that, but that allowed the board of directors and the governors to make a decision.”

All the advisers of the organization unanimously recommended the dismissal of Claver-Carone and the vast majority of the governors, too.

A controversial appointment

The appointment of Claver-Carone, imposed in 2020 due to pressure from Donald Trump and which broke the tradition of the IDB president coming from one of the borrowing countries, was controversial from the beginning.

The former president of the IDB maintains that he was met with a hostile reception and that he was denied information, as he pointed out in a recent interview on NTN24.

EL PAÍS has tried unsuccessfully to contact Claver-Carone through IDB services.

"The bank works in silos, there are centers of power, there are bosses and it is not a secret that they wanted it to fail and no one wanted to share information with us," he said in that interview, in which he claimed to have been subjected to "a trial without rules".

“I don't care that they have decided to take me out of the bank.

I care that it was in a defamatory and dirty way, ”he added.

The bank's governor for Germany, Niel Annen, Secretary of State for Cooperation of the Ministry of Cooperation and Development, explained his position in statements to his country's television: "More than that love affair, it has been a clear violation of the bank's Code of Ethics .

For me personally and also for my fellow governors, the fact that trust was broken because Mr. Claver-Carone was not cooperating with the investigation has been very serious.

On the contrary, he was using the bank's resources to publicly defend himself and I think that was very serious, "he said days after the dismissal.

A bank spokesman declined to comment on the way in which the dismissal had been experienced from within and limited himself to recalling that "the Board of Governors, after a unanimous recommendation of the Executive Board and after an exhaustive investigation, decided to terminate the functions of Mauricio Claver-Carone as president.

reforms

Among the improvements to be introduced, Turner-Jones claims that "hiring practices are supervised by the council, and that department managers, vice presidents and representatives are no longer hired from scratch, but that there is transparency."

“I would like to see come out of this whole debacle a review of what has happened in the last two years, especially in regards to personnel practices, not only because I have been a victim, like many others, but because these decisions are they took it on a whim, without the board asking a single question about why senior management was being fired,” he says.

Turner-Jones asks that personnel practices be aligned with those of other similar organizations such as the IMF or the World Bank.

Zavala emphasizes preventing conflicts of interest.

He denounces that Claver-Carone immediately appointed some of his supporters as vice presidents.

He also believes that some directors of the board prioritized the granting of credits to their countries over control to take care of governance.

And he believes the board of directors should oversee personnel policy, especially when experienced people are mass-demoted and replaced by people several grades below who are inexperienced and easier to pressure.

“People still have post-traumatic syndrome, like in the war.

They are still afraid that something is going to happen to them.

And I ask them: 'Why are you afraid?'

And they tell me: 'I don't know, I don't know, I don't know...' explains Carola Álvarez.

"I feel like they have a mix of complete joy with terror."

Employees who are still working at the bank and who request anonymity share this diagnosis and that a kind of "terror regime" had been installed among some of the employees.

They also point out that the dismissal has been welcomed with relief and that it allows to loosen the pressure of recent months, in which the matter of the investigation conditioned all the agency's actions.

“The bank was in a situation where in all the debates they only talked about their internal situation.

We have to focus on economic growth and not on internal affairs,” Annen agrees.

The relay

Now it's time to choose the replacement for Claver-Carone.

Mexico has announced that it will present Alicia Bárcena as a candidate.

The former president of Costa Rica, Laura Chinchilla, who was already the alternative to Claver-Carone in 2022, and that of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, have also sounded like possible candidates.

The United States has given up proposing that an American be the president of the bank In Washington, it is seen with good eyes that the position be occupied by a woman and that she gather consensus to give stability to the institution after this crisis.

“I think there are plenty of capable, mission-ready women out there to take on this challenge,” says Zavala.

“She would be great and there are so many that it is possible to find the perfect one, but more than a woman or a man, and I hope she is a woman, it seems important to me that she is a person who understands the technical part of the bank.

This bank is not a financial entity, it is a development entity”, she explains.

She also finds it important that he be someone who can get along well with the political diversity of Latin America and the Caribbean.

“I think the key word is credibility,” says Álvarez, “in the sense that the trajectory of that person has to talk about what they bring in terms of agenda, integrity, diversity, inclusivity, regardless of whether they are a woman or man nationality, ethnicity, etc.

It would be wonderful if he also represented that diversity, but his journey and experience is almost more important than the symbolic, ”he adds.

The presentation of candidates is open until November 11 and the governors plan to elect the new president on the 20th of that month.

Subscribe to continue reading

read without limits

Keep reading

I'm already a subscriber